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Friday 8 May 2015
Wednesday 25 March 2015
Haworth History Tour
Richard Wilcocks writes:
The text on the
back cover of this useful little book of historic photographs seems at first
sight to contradict that of the introduction inside: “Behind the tourist
village of today lies a long history of people making a living from the
uncompromising moorland of this area” and “It is a Pennine village that made
its living from farming, stone quarrying and textile manufacture.” That is,
until you remember that the village goes back a thousand years. Tourists,
especially the Brontë enthusiasts amongst them, tend to bear the moorland in
mind rather than the industry, perhaps for obvious reasons.
The book could
easily be slipped into a coat pocket or handbag, and used by anyone who does
not feel like toiling up to Top Withins or sipping tea in cafés but who does
want to know something about local history which is not necessarily linked to the
Parsonage. Sensible shoes are needed, and possibly a strong interest in the
industrial revolution, because many of the places depicted in it are from the nineteenth century. Some of them no longer exist.
West End
Quarry, for example, one of four on Penistone Hill, is now a series of grassy
humps, and Well Street – so called from three large water troughs that used to
be there – was “another casualty of clearance mania”, possibly not an
unfortunate casualty, because the water was so foul that even the cattle
refused to drink it.
Many buildings
have hardly changed at all over the years, for example The Black Bull, and it
is good to find little snippets of information connected with it
like “Max Beerbohm took lunch here with Thomas Hardy’s widow in 1931.” It was
also good to find so many interesting people mentioned, for example Manasseh Hollindrake,
who ran a draper’s shop at number 111 Main Street from 1860 to 1897. One old
photo which is likely to be familiar to Brontë Society members is that of the
old church, most of which (except for the ancient tower) was built in 1755. The
current one dates from 1881.
There is a
useful map in the first few pages as well.
Haworth
History Tour by Steven
Wood and Ian Palmer
Amberley
Publishing
ISBN 978 1 4456
4627 5 (print)
ISBN 978 1 4456
4628 2 (ebook)
Thursday 19 March 2015
Juliet Barker at Headingley Library
Juliet Barker is well known and respected amongst Brontë Society members, a few of whom were in Headingley Library (Leeds) on Monday. She is on a promotional tour for her latest historical work England Arise - The People The King and The Great Revolt of 1381 and the event was the result of a partnership between Leeds Libraries and the Headingley LitFest, an annual feast of literature which is still in progress. Read about it on the LitFest's daily blog here -
http://headingleylitfest.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/england-arise-juliet-barker.html
http://headingleylitfest.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/england-arise-juliet-barker.html
Wuthering Heights at the Rondo Theatre, Larkhall
Butterfly Psyche Theatre |
So writes Petra Schofield in her Bath Chronicle review of a production (the second in a trilogy) from Butterfly Psyche and Live Wire theatre. The adaptation is by Dougie Blaxland. Actors Alison Campbell and Jeremy Fowlds are a delight to watch "morphing in and out of the various cameo roles".
(Thanks to Rondo Theatre and Paul Daniggelis for alerting the blog)
Thursday 12 March 2015
Wuthering Heights... a new musical?
Richard Wilcocks writes:
I am very impressed by what I have heard of a new musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Catherine McDonald. She is currently working with a UK producer to get the show into theatres, so good luck with that! What do readers of this blog think of the musical arrangement and a voice which I would describe as rich and forceful? I heard her singing in the Parsonage nearly five years ago (in June 2010) and was struck by her vocal skills. You can hear three sample songs on YouTube:
I am very impressed by what I have heard of a new musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Catherine McDonald. She is currently working with a UK producer to get the show into theatres, so good luck with that! What do readers of this blog think of the musical arrangement and a voice which I would describe as rich and forceful? I heard her singing in the Parsonage nearly five years ago (in June 2010) and was struck by her vocal skills. You can hear three sample songs on YouTube:
The theme song Wuthering Heights, sung by Nelly, Catherine Linton and Hareton (at the graves) and the entire company of ghosts.
A love ballad, Face to the Rain between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.
And a big solo number Beyond the Garden Wall sung by the sixteen year old Catherine Linton.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkYrnQ4liM&feature=youtu.be
You could comment on YouTube - or here, by clicking on the word 'comments' underneath this post.
You could comment on YouTube - or here, by clicking on the word 'comments' underneath this post.
Wednesday 11 March 2015
Laudanum
Jacob Wandel writes:
Laudanum in the nineteenth century was the rough equivalent of the skunk marijuana smoked by so many people in the present day, but more dangerous.
A recent article in the cooking supplement of last Saturday's Guardian (7 March) by Henry Jeffreys was about laudanum, not as an ingredient for your next pudding, I must add.
Under a line which refers to the famous quotation by Karl Marx - 'In Britain, the opium of the people was not religion, it was simply laudanum', he gives evidence of what many Brontë Society members will probably know already: that the red-brown liquid, powdered opium (ten percent) dissolved in alcohol, its extreme bitterness offset by various spices and additives, could be purchased in most pharmacies during the nineteenth century, and that its use was widespread. Jeffreys makes it clear that it was everywhere. Branwell was just one of countless others who used it frequently.
Apparently, according to the article, it was not mainly in the big industrial slums where it was used. The Morning Chronicle in 1850 referred to the 'opium-eating city of Ely' and Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater) described Lancashire towns 'loaded with little laudanum-vials, even to the hundreds, for the accommodation of customers retiring from the workshops on Saturday night". Gee's Linctus, a cough medicine which was available well into the twentieth century (older members may remember it) was made with opium, and that great household manager Isabella Beeton featured recipes for various remedies made with opium, in her famous book. Mary Shelley's character, Victor Frankenstein, used it to help him sleep.
I am now wondering how many others in nineteenth century Haworth would have bought laudanum to ease their pains, help them forget their woes or to finish themselves off. Is there a scholar who has done the counting?
A typical label (early 20C) |
A recent article in the cooking supplement of last Saturday's Guardian (7 March) by Henry Jeffreys was about laudanum, not as an ingredient for your next pudding, I must add.
Under a line which refers to the famous quotation by Karl Marx - 'In Britain, the opium of the people was not religion, it was simply laudanum', he gives evidence of what many Brontë Society members will probably know already: that the red-brown liquid, powdered opium (ten percent) dissolved in alcohol, its extreme bitterness offset by various spices and additives, could be purchased in most pharmacies during the nineteenth century, and that its use was widespread. Jeffreys makes it clear that it was everywhere. Branwell was just one of countless others who used it frequently.
Apparently, according to the article, it was not mainly in the big industrial slums where it was used. The Morning Chronicle in 1850 referred to the 'opium-eating city of Ely' and Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater) described Lancashire towns 'loaded with little laudanum-vials, even to the hundreds, for the accommodation of customers retiring from the workshops on Saturday night". Gee's Linctus, a cough medicine which was available well into the twentieth century (older members may remember it) was made with opium, and that great household manager Isabella Beeton featured recipes for various remedies made with opium, in her famous book. Mary Shelley's character, Victor Frankenstein, used it to help him sleep.
I am now wondering how many others in nineteenth century Haworth would have bought laudanum to ease their pains, help them forget their woes or to finish themselves off. Is there a scholar who has done the counting?
Monday 9 March 2015
The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips
Thanks to US member Paul Daniggelis from Texas for sending us this link to a review of the new book from Caryl Phillips, The Lost Child, a reweaving of the Wuthering Heights story.
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article12608414.html
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article12608414.html
Friday 1 May, 7pm West Lane Centre, Haworth
Novelist Caryl Phillips visits Haworth to discuss his new novel The Lost Child. Phillips boldly re-imagines Wuthering Heights in 1960s Leeds in a haunting novel about migration, social exclusion and the difficulties of family.
In association with the University of Central Lancashire.
Tickets £6 and should be booked in advance by clicking here or phoning 01535 640188.
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