The Moors just outside of Haworth.
“ I
struck straight into the heath; I
held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I wade
knee deep in it’s dark growth; I turned with it’s turnings, and finding a moss
blackened granite crag in a hidden
angle, I sat down
under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head; the
sky was over that. Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here;
I had a vague
dread that wild cattle might
be near, or that some sportsman or poacher
might discover me. If a gust of wind
swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a
plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however,
and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as
evening declined at nightfall, I
took confidence. As yet I had not
thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I gained the faculty of reflection. What was I to do?
Where was I to go?”
(Jane
Eyre, Chapter XVIII, by Charlotte
Brontë. First published 1847)
This passage
comes straight after Jane has left Mr Rochester, in great consternation. The
presence of his mad, sick wife, watched
and guarded in her garret room has been revealed to Jane, and she has had to spurn Mr Rochester’s approach to her. For all his powerful reasoning she has cast herself
out into a wilderness. In this passage Jane expresses her fear of meeting anybody.
She knows she will be judged. She has left her home for a “no mans
land.” Jane has cast herself out into a world of wind, rain, storms and
barrenness and fearful imaginings. All is left to chance. This scene portrays the mental and physical situation Jane is in. She descends into deep despair and wishes for death. A human being could go no lower. Charlotte Brontë challenges us to experience this with her character. She shakes us up and makes us consider things we would not do normally.
Charlotte
Brontë explores societies values about relationships and marriage. The
long argument between Mr Rochester and Jane and this moorland scene give us an inkling into the writing process that she went through and the purpose for writing she believed in.
Emily, Charlotte and Anne
Recently, Clive, an old school mate of mine and Paul , also an old school
friend from our Liverpool days, and I visited Haworth Parsonage in the village
of Haworth on The Pennine Moors. It was the home of the Brontë family that
included the three sisters, Emily, Anne
and Charlotte who wrote some of the most amazing stories of the English language. We always think of the
Brontës, sitting in that stone parsonage miles away from all
civilisation conjuring up brutal and emotional
stories through their imaginations brought on by wild winds, rocky promontories and windswept
moors.. This is partly true. There
are the moors and the windswept promontories at the back
of the parsonage and reaching far
off to the horizon, but the parsonage is
situated on the edge of Haworth, which
is an extensive community. They were not
alone. The sisters were the daughters of, Patrick Brontë, the vicar of Haworth, and this might have created a
social distance between them and the
rest of the village.
The Haworth parsonage where the Brontë sisters lived.
When we
entered the parsonage, the first room we saw, to the left of the entrance was the parlour. Much of the furniture is the same
as when The Brontës lived there. There is a large dining table and it was
around this table the three sisters would conjure up their stories. It was interesting to hear that they would
often walk around the room and around the table talking about their ideas,
verbalising their stories, exchanging ideas. This brings me back to the above
passage from Jane Eyre. I can imagine the Brontë sisters challenging societies perceived values. Exploring the authenticity of accepted codes. I can imagine Emily or Anne
playing devil’s advocate to Charlotte's Jane Eyre and arguing Mr Rochester's view. I can imagine Charlotte pouring out the emotions of Jane expressing despair and the anguish Jane felt cast out on the moors. That room and that table must have been
witness to some dramatic scenes. It is also
interesting to discover that the Brontë sisters drew and sketched. By using,
acting, speakiing out, sketching and dramatising scenes they crafted and formed
their stories. They discussed, in their writing, Christian morals, social conventions, such as marriage and challenged these perceived conventions, questioning and reasoning every aspect. The moors had an emotional and physical presence which infiltrated their writing. The weather and the landscape were all put into the mix to create the conflicts and arguments. This is what makes them great
writers. A great writer should challenge
the reader.
Being human never changes. The process the Brontës went through to write their
stories is as valid today as it was then. Jane
Austen’s process took a similar path. She was more discrete and private but she read her writing out loud to Cassandra
and Martha Lloyd. She mulled over sentences and phrases with them. She loved
going to the theatre and loved to see stories acted out. Her brothers had been a big influence on her
in this process. Cassandra we know loved drawing and sketching and so did Jane.
We can see these similar creative process between the Brontës and Austen. They each did
it in their own way and with their own emphasis
but the process of thinking, writing, editing having somebody to listen to their compositions,reading out loud, dramatizing and drawing was very similar. Charlotte, Anne,
Emily Brontë, along with Jane Austen, loved language and words.
The Brontë sisters in that parlour in the parsonage in Haworth,
pacing round the
room, taking character parts,
reading out loud, trying new phrases, challenging each other, were in short , as Pie Corbett says in describing, “Talk for Writing,” making their ,”prose flow…and bite and sting.”
The
Brontës lived in the Haworth Parsonage, from 1820 to 1861.Charlotte; Emily and
Anne Brontë were the authors of some of the best-loved books in the English
language. Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre (1847), Emily's Wuthering Heights (1847),
and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) were written in this house over a
hundred and fifty years ago. Both their father, the Revd. Patrick Brontë, and
brother Branwell also saw their own works in print.
Looking down Haworth High Street.
Haworth is a
rugged little village with all the buildings constructed from local limestones
and millstone grit. The village perches on the side of a steep hill. The parsonage, where the Brontes lived, is at
the top of the village and then beneath the parsonage is the graveyard followed
by the church and then houses and shops sloping downhill towards the railway station in the valley below. I should think
the heart of Haworth, all the buildings
that comprise the high street and some of the houses just off the high
street down small alleyways, are
the same structures that were there in the time of the Brontës. The Black Bull
pub at the top of the high street is the very establishment that Branwell Brontë used to frequent and get drunk
in. He was an alcoholic and a womaniser. He was thrown out of one job as
a tutor to a young boy in a wealthy household in nearby Halifax because he had
a relationship with the mother. What was embarrassing for Charlotte was that
she was tutor to the daughter of the same household and had got Branwell the
job with the family. She had left her employment with the family shortly before
the fiasco with Branwell, fortunately.
A shop in Haworth High Street.
The High
Street is full of quaint shops who are using the Brontës to bring
customers through their doors. Lovely, very good quality tea
shops proliferate, Ye Olde Brontë Tea Rooms where Paul bought us an excellent lunch, Villette Coffee House and
The Souk and lots more to choose from .
There are also many good quality artefact shops, woollens, books, antiques,
art galleries, home made sweet shops, clothing
shops; Mrs Beightons Sweet Shop,
Silverland, Firths, The Steam Brewing
Company, Catkins of Haworth, Ice Shop and Gifts , The Stirrup, and so on . Surprisingly few actually use a blatant Brontë connection but they all benefit and owe their existence to the tourist pull of
The Brontës. It would be easy to criticise this but Haworth is situated in an area
of poor employment and little investment to create
new industries and new wealth. Tourism, sheep
farming and sports such as walking camping, pot holing and
climbing are some of the main sources of income in the area and so the good
people of Haworth use tourism to make a living. The stories written by Emily, Catherine and Anne help a lot.
The shop attached to the Haworth Parsonage stocks all the Brontës books including the biographies. There are good quality guide books and OS maps of the area for walkers and those who want to explore the moors. There are also pencils and book marks and a beautiful selection of cards.
Clive and a gentleman singing Dylan numbers.
As Clive, Paul
and I walked downhill along the High Street of Haworth a busker strummed his
guitar and sang Bob Dylan songs. Clive being
a proficient guitarist and singer himself joined in and accompanied the busker. They were a great duet. We walked on down to the bottom of the High street to
the nearby station. Haworth station is a very important station. It is run by the Keighley and Worth Valley
Railway and Haworth station is it’s headquarters. They renovate and use old steam
trains to run on the line. Haworth station itself has been used as a film set
for The Railway Children. It is used for
period films when steam trains are required. We are lucky to have steam train enthusiasts in different
parts of Britain who have taken
on old disused stretches of railway
lines and renovated them. A few miles south of where I live in the
beautiful Hampshire countryside is the Watercress
Line, a similar organisation to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. It passes near Chawton, the home of Jane Austen.
As we walked
back up the hill to Haworth Parsonage, a large group of Morris Dancers had arrived in the
village. They were dressed in their colourful
regalia and carried sticks for the type of dance they were going to perform. They were dressed
in costumes comprising strips of multi-coloured rags. Their faces were painted
with mauves, blues and reds, similar to ancient Celtic tradition. In the South of England , Morris Dancers tend to wear white
trousers and white shirts with bells and ribbons hanging off them.
A Wikipedia article describes Morris dancing
thus::
“Morris
dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based
on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of
dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks,
swords and handkerchiefs may also be wielded by the dancers. In a small number
of dances for one or two men, steps are performed near and across a pair of
clay tobacco pipes laid across each other on the floor.
Claims that
English records dating back to 1448 mention the morris dance are open to
dispute. There is no mention of "morris" dancing earlier than the
late 15th century, although early records such as Bishops' "Visitation
Articles" mention sword dancing, guising and other dancing activities as
well as mumming plays. Furthermore, the earliest records invariably mention
"Morys" in a court setting, and both men and women are mentioned as
dancing, and a little later in the Lord Mayors' Processions in London. It is
only later that it begins to be mentioned as something performed in the
parishes. There is certainly no evidence that it is a pre-Christian ritual, as
is often claimed.”
Morris men and ladies in Haworth.
Morris dancers and Mummers, create an old way of story telling passed from one generation to the next. They are are an exciting spectacle.
We left Haworth
driving north towards the motorway and passed through some of the desolate
moorland beloved by the Brontes before
reaching the old mill town of Halifax. I had
not been to Halifax before and I was amazed at the site of many of the old
Victorian cotton mills . They are enormous stone buildings that encapsulate the growth of industrialisation in the Victorian period.
Paul, a very good mate of mine from Liverpool standing in Haworth's churchyard.
This link is
an attachment to the Haworth Parsonage and will provide you with lots of
information about the Brontës and the
parsonage.
POST SCRIPT;
Pie Corbett has written two books to help teachers develop children’s writing.
“Jumpstart to Literacy,” and “Jumpstart to Storymaking.”
They are
full of games and strategies to help develop character, setting and to help a
story move along.
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