A visit to the Parsonage Museum.... and the first photographes !!!!!

This article is from the weblog Helena Fairfax

Look to the beautiful photographes  of the new decorated Parsonage.

 

I am so happy Helena made these pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

On this photographe I see  the removing of the portrait of Charlotte Bronte

Instead there is hanging an example of the Charlotte-Cory exposition
 

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a writers’ workshop at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. The workshop was run by the Scots poet Jackie Kay. Jackie Kay is the writer in residence at the Parsonage (what a brilliant job that must be!)  She is also Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle Uni, an MBE for her services to literature, and the author of several volumes of prose and poetry.  So, writing, the moors, Haworth and the Brontës – I was quite excited about the day! 

Jackie Kay talked about her research as writer in residence, and the areas which had particularly interested her. One of these was the life of the Brontë sisters’ father, Patrick Brontë. Patrick was Irish, but spent most of his adult life in England. He went to Cambridge, which was a massive achievement for the largely self-taught son of an agricultural labourer, who had been destined by his family to become a blacksmith. Jackie Kay wondered what type of man he had been, to come from such a background and be father to one of the most creative families in literature.  He survived his wife and all six of his children.

 

Another of the Haworth characters that interested Jackie was Tabitha, the family’s maid.  Jackie believes Tabitha was herself a phenomenal story teller, and would regale the children with tales that were far beyond their years. She served with the family for 31 years, and was much loved.
One of the discoveries I most enjoyed finding out about was a poignant list of the household’s goods, which Jackie came across during her research. The household goods were put up for auction after Patrick Brontë died, and include such items as “Sundry Books 5 s/3p” ; “Warming Pan 5s / ” ;  “Hair Trunk 12s/ “; and (somehow I found this the saddest): “2 silk umbrellas 10s / 6p”.
Finally, the writing exercise Jackie set us involved choosing one of the rooms in the Parsonage, plus an object we’d seen there, and maybe one of the members of the household. We also had to write down four words that summed up our main impressions of the morning. Then we had five minutes to write what we wanted.  (I’m not really explaining this as well as Jackie Kay did, but I’m sure you get my drift!)

Anyway, I decided to put a scene together involving Patrick Brontë reading to the children when they were young.  I’m also intrigued by Aunt Branwell, so she, too, appeared in my five minute writing.  Aunt Branwell was Patrick’s sister-in-law, and moved from Plymouth to Haworth to look after the family when her sister died.  According to Mrs Gaskell, Aunt Branwell ran the household with clockwork precision.  I wonder what she made of the sisters and their frenzies of creativity, and of their brother Branwell, who became addicted to alcohol and opium.