Shakespeare's sister

Given that today might -- or might not -- be Shakespeare's birthday, it seems as good a day as any to remember Virginia Woolf's summoning up of his unknown sister in "A Room of One's Own". I love this passage -- yet another of Woolf's wonderfully imaginative reinventions -- which never fails to inspire me, however tired or despondent or disconsolate I might be.

"I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young -- alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh."

Charlotte Bronte's birthday

I couldn't let today end without remembering it as Charlotte Bronte's birthday. She was born, as I'm sure you already know, on April 21st 1816, in Thornton; the third daughter of Maria and Patrick Bronte. Charlotte was named after Maria's youngest sister. Maria's first child, also named Maria, had been born in 1814; a year later, she gave birth to her second daughter, on February 8th 1815, who was named after an elder sister, Elizabeth.
Thus by the time of Charlotte's birth, Maria Bronte had three daughters under the age of three.
Branwell was born the following year (June 26 1817); Emily on 30 July 1818; and Anne on 17 January 1820. Six children in six years... Poor Maria. Patrick moved his family to the parsonage in Haworth in April 1820. By the beginning of the following year, it became clear that Maria was mortally ill. She had cancer (probably of the uterus), and died on 15th September 1821. In the days before she died, she cried out, over and over again, 'Oh God, my poor children.'

In the library at the Bronte Parsonage

So, here we are in the library at the Bronte Parsonage. The bookcases are full of treasures, and Tessa Montgomery, Daphne's daughter, is looking at the manuscripts of Branwell's poems that her mother bought from Symington, and subsequently donated to the Parsonage, after she had finished writing "The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte".
It's 50 years since Tessa was in Haworth with Daphne -- and she says the Parsonage looks almost exactly the same. The only disappointment is that she remembers being fascinated by the Bronte childrens' handwriting on the walls of their bedroom; but now, on this return visit, Juliet Barker (standing behind us in the picture, with the blonde bob) has revealed the rather less romantic news that the Bronte 'handwriting' was faked at the turn of the century by a local decorator, working in the Parsonage at the time.

You can also see Ann Dinsdale in this picture -- she is the collections manager at the Parsonage, and like Juliet Barker (a former curator), was immensely helpful to me when I was researching "Daphne".
Anyone who has read the book will know that the library is the setting for an episode in the modern narrative strand, when Rachel 'borrows' the Symington papers that are kept locked away here, decades after he was dismissed from his job as curator and librarian, after various Bronte manuscripts and relics went missing. In fact, as I explained during my talk at the Parsonage on Friday evening, I didn't emulate either Rachel (or Symington before her) by turning into a thief! I was allowed to spend a day reading through the Symington file, which revealed, amongst other things, that he had been the last person to have the Honresfeld manuscript -- the lost notebook of Emily Bronte's handwritten poems.
I'm hoping that someone will read "Daphne", follow the clues within the story, and finally track down that elusive, priceless notebook.
Good luck to any of you who are already on the trail!

A Bronte Parsonage mystery

I'm just back home from Yorkshire, and it's very late, so I'm probably going to sound incoherent about last night's event at the Parsonage, but here's a quick report, and I'll do a proper one tomorrow. I traveled up to Haworth from London with Tessa (Lady Montgomery), Daphne du Maurier's daughter; and it was the first time she'd returned to the Parsonage since she'd gone there with her mother, when Daphne was researching "The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte", 50 years ago.
It was suitably wuthering when we arrived yesterday afternoon -- bitterly cold, and a low grey sky, so the Parsonage looked at its most mythically bleak. But inside all was warm and humming with voices.
The talk had sold out -- people came from all over the country, and one particularly dedicated woman had traveled from Toronto especially for this event, much to my amazement. (Thankfully, when I spoke to her afterwards, she said she'd thoroughly enjoyed it, and the long journey was worthwhile.)
I felt quite emotional about the whole experience. The Parsonage was where the idea for 'Daphne' rooted itself in my mind, when I was there over five years ago, researching the chapter on Charlotte Bronte's ring in my previous book ("My Mother's Wedding Dress"), and first heard the whispers about the scandals surrounding the former curator, Alex Symington. And it was on a subsequent visit there -- soon after I'd been asked to write the introduction to a new edition of du Maurier's biography of Branwell -- that I began to piece together Daphne's connection with Symington, as well as the mystery of the missing notebook of Emily Bronte's poems...
So to return there, to talk about my finished book, alongside Daphne's daughter, was quite extraordinary. What made it even more emotional (for me, at least) was that the Parsonage had brought out the original manuscripts of Branwell Bronte's poems that Daphne had purchased from Symington, and later donated to the Parsonage (or perhaps returned them to their rightful home, given the shady circumstances under which Symington had acquired them). Added to which, one of Symington's nephews was in the audience last night, and afterwards, he told me a story that I had never heard before, about Alex Symington's murky involvement with a forged Bronte letter... So the story I told in "Daphne" had a sequel last night...
Anyway, my head is literally spinning, so part two tomorrow...

Ghosts at the Bronte Parsonage

I've been so inspired by the comments in response to the last post -- including Maylin's marvelous story (please do check it out!) about Bronte ghosts, that I wanted to tell people about a visit I made to the Bronte Parsonage in the summer of 2006, to attend a seance. I wrote about it for the Sunday Telegraph and I hope you enjoy it. It even has a du Maurier connection, in the form of Henrietta Llewelyn Davies -- great grand-daughter of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies -- who will be taking part in the event I'm doing at the du Maurier festival in Cornwall on May 10.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm returning to the Parsonage, but this time with Daphne du Maurier's daughter, Lady Tessa Montgomery. I'll report back if we see any ghosts, in the form of sheep or otherwise...

Virginia Woolf in Haworth

I've just been re-reading Virginia Woolf's account of her visit to Haworth in 1904 (to get me even more in the mood for my expedition there on Friday). She's got a nicely wry streak in her account:
"I understand that the sun very seldom shone on the Bronte family, and if we chose a really fine day we should have to make allowance for the fact that fifty years ago there were few fine days at Haworth, and that we were, therefore, for the sake of comfort, rubbing out half the shadows in the picture."
I'm hoping for a fine day on Friday, before the evening event I'm doing at the Parsonage, and then some brilliant early morning sunshine on Saturday morning, so that I can walk up to Top Withins and imagine myself into Wuthering Heights, before catching a minicab from Bronte Taxis back to Keighley train station.
It's true. They are called Bronte Taxis. No sign of Branwell at the wheel, though... He's too busy swigging gin and telling tall tales to the tourists at the Black Bull.