SONGS AND SCRIPTS AND DUNKING BISCUITS

As this weird period of my year continues in my sisters spare room, waiting as the legal palaver grinds on and on for my new property 130 miles away, I try and find new ways daily to fill the hours. As I have been here in Cumbria since June 27^th (94 days if we’re counting) I am now on the outer limits of imagination.

I’ve seen many historically and fascinating homes, castles and gardens in this historically rich county. I know so much more than I did three months ago. I’ve seen gorgeous lakes and stunning mountains and woken to the sunlight bathing the nearby fields and I’m grateful for the reflections to nature that being in a rural settings has given me.   

But last week I decided to move out of Cumbria into nearby Yorkshire for three days to fulfil a long-held ambition to visit Howarth, 111 miles from my present location. Howarth is the village in West Yorkshire famous, in England at least, for being the place where the sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte lived.

With it’s steep cobbled streets this is the quintessential northern town sitting alongside the rolling moors the Bronte’s gained such inspiration from. I built up to going to the Bronte Parsonage and Museum by doing other things first and soaking in the feel of the town. Staying in Main Street in Howarth I was aware the Bronte’s would have passed by this way many times.

When I did get to the family home I entered it was an odd mix of excitement, reservation and reverence. The dining room where the family eat and where the sisters would walk around the table sharing ideas, was the first room on the left as I entered. It is the room where Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre, and where Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, two of the greatest works in English literature.

It was unreal to be there, knowing these walls had witnessed such staggering literary creations. I tried to imagine them bouncing ideas off one another unaware of most of what they were sharing would be inspiring people two centuries on. But this was also the room where Emily passed away at the tender age of 30. Desperately sad.

And that was the overriding feeling I took away, a feeling of melancholy. Of riches untapped. Anne Bronte, author of the brilliant Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey died aged 29. The Bronte’s talented but troubled brother succumbed to dependence oN opioids and alcohol in his father’s bedroom at aged just 31.

And Charlotte, just months after her wedding and in the early stages of pregnancy was gone at 38. Of course these were times of much lower mortality rates and this needs to be taken into account. That said, Howarth had a lower life expectancy than most villages of its size. In fact the Bronte’s exceeded the life expectancy of the town, which was just under 26 years.

Following his daughters deaths their long since widowed father Patrick commissioned an investigation that highlighted a staggering lack of hygiene in the towns privies, even for the time. One, at the top of the main street where I stayed, had a cesspit below the toilet that often overflowed. A drinking tap was just two yards away from the cesspit.

The local graveyard was badly designed, resulting in decomposing material seeping into the drinking water. The Bronte’s, whose father was the local parish priest, lived in the Parsonage at the top of the church’s graveyard. It hardly bears thinking about.

Imagine all that energy, all that creativity and extraordinary energy, then an empty, silent house. It’s hard enough for a parent to exceed the life of one child, let alone six (sisters Maria and Elizabeth died in childhood before they got to Howarth).

However the short but considerable lifeforce and creativity of the Bronte sisters permeates through not just the town, but through literature. An exhibition room at the back of the house showcases the many film and television adaptations of their work. All from that house, through these tasteful but ultimately modest rooms.

And though I left Howarth with a feeling of sadness, it was a also with considerable wonder and respect.