Annual Brontë weekend in Haworth: a novice's experience

Haworth moors


Patty Simou (on the left) with other members of the Brussels group (Maureen Peeck, Renate Hurtmanns, Helen MacEwan, Gunilla Westman and Eva Stönner) chatting to UK Brontë Society members in Haworth

This was my first time in Haworth. Already an avid fan of the Brontë literature, I was looking forward to finally walking in the place where the three sisters lived and wrote. The Brontë Society had prepared an excellent programme to highlight all that which makes the Brontës eternally interesting - their style that has inspired so many other authors of their time, but also continues to inspire authors of the present.

The choice of lectures combined all the domains the sisters engaged in, and I was pleasantly surprised that they exceeded my expectations, with all these new details to further feed my interest in them. The programme was also accentuated by the restoration of the Brontë piano, and the pleasure of an evening of music "out of this world". The notion of such an old instrument, that gave so much pleasure to the Brontës, finally being able to play music transcending all generations into the future - what an experience! The trips organised in the area also provided an insight into the region and an appreciation for the history of people and places that have formed the world we live in.

And then, there were the moors of course... Such indescribable beauty that, despite all the travels I've made, left me speechless. That vast area of all the shades of green, the absolute silence for enjoyment and reflection... This is a sight I fully recommend to all those who have not yet travelled to Haworth.

The most important aspect of this trip, however, were the people I met: the other members of the group, who embraced me in this first journey to the history of the Brontës and of Haworth and who, with their addictive interest and knowledge of the subjects, wooed me into wanting to learn more myself! Their kindness and this exchange of information and experience brings out the best in people, and has made me immerse myself into learning more and enjoy this interaction!

A truly wonderful experience all in all, to be repeated!

Patty Simou

Annual Brontë weekend in Haworth 4-7 June

Main St, Haworth

This year 7 members from Belgium and 3 from the Netherlands travelled to Haworth to attend the annual Brontë ("AGM") weekend. For some of the Brussels members it was their first visit to Haworth. The Brontë Society had prepared the usual interesting mix of events: a concert, talks, interviews with writers and with an artist, a graphologist talking about the Brontës' handwriting, a book auction, an evening of entertainment by members, guided walks and a full-day excursion.

Apart from the Brontë Society programme, for those with any spare time or energy there were other things going on in the village "on the fringes" of the AGM. Some Brussels members rode on the Worth Valley steam railway and saw the station used in the film The Railway Children. Others stayed up until 3 a.m. on Sunday to go on a ghost hunt organised by the Black Bull, Branwell Brontë's local, which of course boasts at least one haunted room and still houses Branwell's Chair. Bleary-eyed members who attended told us next day about this "psychic event" which included a séance using the chair and a visit to the churchyard in the small hours.

The weekend started on Friday afternoon with a interview with the artist Victoria Brookland about her exhibition of paintings inspired by dresses in the Brontë Parsonage Museum collection.

The evening event was a magical occasion: the opportunity to hear a concert using Emily's tall "cabinet" piano, restored thanks to a donation from an American member, the first time it has been heard since the Brontës' times. Emily was a keen player, and of course studied the piano here in Brussels as well as teaching it to young pupils at the Pensionnat Heger. The restored piano is now back in Patrick's study and as it was a fine evening we could listen either in the Parsonage (in the hall or sitting on the stairs) or in the front garden at the top of the village, adjoining the churchyard, with the moors beyond.


Concert in the Parsonage with Emily's piano

Saturday, a day of brilliant sunshine, started with an interview with the children's writer Robert Swindells about his novel Follow a Shadow, in which a teenage boy's Water Mitty-like fantasy life involves Branwell Brontë and we see the Parsonage through his eyes on a school visit to Haworth. This was followed by Lyndall Gordon, author of the biography of Charlotte Brontë A Passionate Life, speaking of the Brontës' influence on Emily Dickinson, once described as "a kind of left-over Brontë". Many parallels came to light apart from the obvious autobiographical ones (strong father figure, closeness to siblings, importance of home and homesickness when away).

In the afternoon we had an auction of books left to the Society by a member, a garden tea party and the AGM itself, and in the evening we listened to Lucasta Miller, author of The Brontë Myth, talking to the American feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter, author of A Literature of their Own, which Lucasta told us she read in a single night as a student when she was supposed to be studying Milton! Elaine told us about the reactions to the Brontës of American 19th century readers who, unlike their British counterparts, did not find them shocking or "coarse". They took Jane Eyre to their hearts at once, appreciating in particular her egalitarian words to Rochester ("Equal, as we are").


Lucasta Miller and Elaine Showalter

On Sunday morning we could choose between a walk over the moors to the "Brontë falls", or around Haworth with a local historian, both in the rain! In the afternoon we were introduced to the art of graphology by Diane Simpson, who got us analysing our own handwriting and that of various famous personalities, including Lord Nelson, who signed himself "Nelson and Brontë" (Brontë being one of his titles, which is what is thought to have inspired Patrick Brunty to change his name) before moving on to the four Brontë siblings. This was followed by a service in Haworth church where Patrick preached for so many years. A church service of remembrance and celebration of the Brontë family is always held over the weekend with an address or lecture on a Brontë theme.


Brontë Falls


Patricia De Gray on the "Brontë Stone Chair"

To round off the day we had a meal in the Old White Lion with entertainment (poems, songs, readings and a comedy sketch) provided by members.

Monday was as always taken up with a full-day excursion and this year's was to places associated with Branwell and Emily Brontë's periods of employment in the Halifax area. These periods ended of course in their return to the Parsonage, driven home again by homesickness in Emily's case and in Branwell's by his losing his job as a railway clerk. We visited the lovely town of Luddenden where he stayed when working at stations on the new railway, and stopped at Law Hill House where Emily worked briefly as a teacher. We also visited places nearby that she would have known: the site of High Sunderland Hall which may have inspired Wuthering Heights, and Shibden Hall, whose unconventional owner Anne Lister had been the subject of a BBC series the previous week.


The Lord Nelson in Luddenden, frequented by Branwell Brontë when he was working as a clerk on the Leeds and Manchester Railway.


Shibden Hall

On Tuesday morning it was time to pack up and take leave of our favourite haunts in and around the village – the moor walks, bookshops, favourite pub or tea room, and of course the Parsonage Museum itself. For many this annual pilgrimage has long been a fixture in their calendar, and I'm sure that some of this year's first-time visitors will be returning too.


Eva Stönner and Gunilla Westman, two of the first-time visitors to Haworth from Brussels

Helen MacEwan

The Life of Charlotte Brontë and Villette: Angus Easson and Sandro Jung at the annual Brussels Brontë weekend

Brussels member Emily Waterfield reports on the talks given by Professors Angus Easson and Sandro Jung at our 4th annual Brontë weekend in Brussels.

For a report on all the activities over the weekend see the following post by Selina Busch.

The weekend was attended by several members from the UK, including Sally McDonald who chairs the Brontë Society's membership committee.

When her Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857, Elizabeth Gaskell said she would never write another biography. The celebrated social and Unitarian novelist had, in addition to the emotional challenge of writing about her recently deceased friend, faced so many complaints and threats of legal action over the Life that it had to be rewritten for republication almost immediately.

On the bicentenary of Gaskell’s birth, editor of the Oxford Classics edition of the Life, Professor Angus Easson spoke to the Brussels Brontë Group about the role of the Group’s home town in Gaskell’s research, and the problems caused by reporting on the Brussels years.

Having accepted the invitation from Patrick Brontë to write the life of his daughter Gaskell was keen to bring the same “charm of locality and sense of detail” to the Life that had already characterised her novels Mary Barton, Cranford and North & South. She quickly realised that a visit to Brussels was needed. Like Professor Easson himself, she visited the cathedral, Royal Park and Belliard steps that feature in the novel, as well as many key Villette locations since destroyed.

Gaskell’s investigations were however made more delicate by the fact that when Villette was translated into French, the fictitious city name was changed to ‘Bruxelles’. Individuals portrayed in the novel were thus left with even less to mask their identity and felt understandably wary of welcoming a second English novelist into their homes.

Undaunted, French-speaking Gaskell made contact with locals including the widow of the former English chaplain and the Brussels chief of police. Although failing to win an audience with Madame Heger (the inspiration for the almost certainly slanderous character of Madame Beck), Gaskell was able to meet with Charlotte’s beloved Monsieur Heger (Monsieur Paul).

Her careful investigations were not however enough to stop debate around the accuracy of the final book: a debate which continues today.

Speaking to the Brussels Group later the same day Professor Sandro Jung considered Villette and investigations of a different sort. His talk on ‘Curiosity in Villette’ described Lucy Snow as “an emotionally motivated detective”, using curiosity to understand the world. In contrast, Madame Beck is a “cold, spying, curious female” with no emotional attachment to what she sees.

A third “female gaze” in the novel is supplied by Miss Marchmont who, following the death of her lover, sees the world from a negatively emotional perspective. This contrasts with Lucy’s growth towards successful human relationships and reciprocated love.

These various ways in which the female sees have been neglected even by feminists in critiques of Villette, which have instead focused on the male gaze and how females are seen, said Professor Jung. His full book manuscript on ‘Brontës and Curiosity’ will be published by Associated University Presses in 2011.

Professor Easson has taught at the universities of Newcastle upon Tyne, London (The Royal Holloway College) and Salford, where he was professor of English until his retirement in 2000. He has published widely on Romantic and Victorian literature, and is currently working on supplements to the Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens and a book on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Professor Sandro Jung taught in the UK for ten years at the University of Wales Lampeter and the University of Salford. He moved to Ghent University at the beginning of 2010 to take up the University Chair in Early Modern British literature. Professor Jung sits on the editorial board of Brontë Studies. He is in the process of organizing a workshop on the poetry of the Brontës at Ghent University.

Emily Waterfield

Report on April 2010 weekend

There are always good reasons to return to Brussels and one reason, which could also be used as the theme of this weekend, is curiosity.

Curiosity led Mrs. Gaskell to Brussels to do research for her biography on Charlotte Brontë, a story that would be unravelled during one lecture this weekend and curiosity, or observation, was a theme of another lecture on Villette.

Rue Royale

For myself, I’m always curious to see Brussels again, even though I’ve visited the city many times before. And despite some nerves and apprehension, I was looking forward to coming to the Brussels Brontë Group April weekend. I was curious too to find out what remained the same or had changed, whether I would see familiar faces again, or meet new people. It is always a journey of discoveries, however small or big.

The start of the weekend, Friday 23rd, promised to be a wonderful first discovery. Last year I met an artist on our Friday evening get-together, Franklin, who told me about his work. I was totally fascinated and curious to see the real thing and on Friday afternoon I finally got the chance to visit his studio, in the company of a small group of equally curious BBG members. In an old house in the Chaussée de Waterloo, in the suburb of Elsene, we were warmly welcomed by Franklin who showed us up to his truly artistic and atmospheric studio, which he called a ‘Temple’. All I knew was that his work was inspired by the Brontës and their works, but none of our party was prepared for what we were about to see, including myself. The studio, or exhibition space, was in itself an ‘Experience’ with special music and lighting accompanying a mood to wrap around the works. I was in awe and totally transfixed by it all, most of all the magnificent works themselves, which seemed to come from another world. It is impossible to start explaining them, which I won’t attempt here, but I’m glad that the Brontë Society has given this clearly gifted artist the chance to exhibit his unique work in Haworth next year. So keep your eyes and ears open!

Friday evening saw the official start of our weekend with what is usually a relaxed get-together to welcome old and new members, travelling long distances in some cases. For a few years now, one of the lecture rooms of the University of Saint-Louis has been put at our disposal, for which we have been and will remain truly grateful.

A lovely varied buffet was spread out on some tables, with each of us bringing a little something to share with everyone, together with drinks provided by the university.

Welcome buffet

Quickly the room started to fill with old and new faces, some of which I have got to know since I joined the group. Others I had met before in England, as it was lovely to discover a few Brontë Society members from the UK who had joined us for this weekend. It was also a privilege and joy to have Sally MacDonald joining us this weekend, who is the Chair of the Membership Committee of the Brontë Society. Yet it is always lovely to meet some new people on one of these informal occasions, and I suppose curiosity in each of us sets us off talking to others, exchanging ideas and discovering each other's interests concerning the Brontës. A small interlude of entertainment, in the form of a Brontë quiz livened things up even further and it was a shame that time flew by so quickly with the evening ending in good spirits.

Saturday has become the most official and academic day of our yearly April weekend, and this Saturday 24th April, two lectures were on our programme which I was looking forward to very much.

Students and members listening to Angus Easson

In the morning, Professor Angus Easson gave a lecture called On the Brussels trail: Elizabeth and The Life of Charlotte Brontë. In his open address, where the audience was invited to interrupt and participate, he talked about the questions and research involved for a writer establishing facts for a biography. How did Mrs. Gaskell manage to give a ‘truthful’ account of Charlotte Brontë’s life while trying to get co-operation from those still living? How did she go about gathering stories and material and visiting places and meeting people? Her detective work was one of persistence and curiosity in which she had a nose for the smallest details. I was interested to hear of her coming to Brussels and even managing to speak to M. Heger while he still lived in the pensionnat. Prof. Easson’s very interesting talk was followed by a lively debate with questions from the audience; perhaps a tad more lively then expected by many (those who were present will remember this).

Selina Busch hands Angus Easson a reproduction of one of her drawings of the Pensionnat

Isabelle Peere (our host at the university), Angus Easson, Helen MacEwan and Sally McDonald, Chair of the Brontë Society Membership Committee

We then had a break for lunch at the Comic Strip Museum restaurant.

Members having lunch in the Strip Cartoon Museum

In the afternoon we welcomed our next speaker, Dr Sandro Jung of Ghent University. This was a change in the schedule, for originally a meeting with author Jude Morgan was planned; he had to cancel and Dr Jung was luckily able to step into the breach only a few days before our weekend. Thank goodness! And we couldn’t have been more fortunate, for his lecture about Villette tied in well with Prof. Easson’s address that morning.

Sandro Jung with Helen MacEwan

His lecture, Curiosity in Villette, explored the theme of curiosity, observation, investigation and gaze in Charlotte’s novel. In his argument these ‘detective’ forms are used to project the different emotional perspectives of the main female characters in the novel. He explained that each character used this as an instrument for understanding (or even using) the world around them, all on a different kind of level.

Marina Saegerman hands Sandro Jung one of her Brontë poems worked in calligraphy

Unfortunately, as we came to the end of our afternoon, there wasn’t that much time left to get an audience feed-back, but all the interesting views and points left us with more than enough to think about. I find that no matter how often you hear new points of views in lectures you might either agree or disagree with, you’re always left with some new insight which enhances your understanding of the novel(s).

Sandro Jung after his talk

Thanks to these wonderful two speakers, this eventful and mind-boggling day will no doubt have a lasting impact on many of us; I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to miss them.

Last, but not least, we also paid special thanks to Isabelle Peere for all her efforts in making this weekend possible.

Isabelle Peere gets a present

Our two speakers kindly agreed to join a few of us when we agreed to go to the Grand Place for a well-deserved drink. As we stepped outside the university building, it appeared Brussels was bathing in warm sunshine when we walked towards the centre of the old town, meeting large crowds of tourists and shoppers that busy Saturday afternoon along the way.

A nice coincidence happened; when we were sitting in one of the old cafés in the Grand Place, we heard instruments playing outside and two giant puppets (called Jan and Jannika?) appeared. An authentic, old Brussels folkloric scene took place. This was a scene from Prof. Easson’s talk that morning when he mentioned Mrs Gaskell’s sharp observation of old Brussels history and which she later wrote in her biography.

After some farewells and goodbyes it was off to the Rue Teracken, as I always feel obliged to simply walk in that old, original street during each visit to Brussels, and say hello to the old quarter of which so little remains. I was also curious to see if the plaque at the end of that street was still up. It was…luckily! But oh dear, the street itself had lost its original stone paving. To my sadness I would no longer be able to touch and feel the old cobbles which I believed Charlotte and Emily might once have walked on. It was, I saw, paved with new cobbles and grey strips of hard stone. From the few places and streets still remaining and which belonged to the old Isabelle quarter, even the Rue Terarcken had not been spared the consequences of a make-over.

On our last day, Sunday 25th, a guided walk around Brontë places was led by Myriam Campinaire in the morning. I personally didn’t go on that, as I’ve been before, but for those who went and hadn’t been familiar with the old streets, it certainly was an eye-opener. Around noon we all met up for lunch on the roof terrace restaurant of the Museum of Musical Instruments with its fabulous views of Brussels, where we enjoyed some good food, a glass of beer or wine, and more enjoyable conversations.

Lunch in the Musical Instruments Museum restaurant

For those interested we crossed over the square to the quieter garden of the Belle Vue, where we continued our conversations and discussions in what was a well-attended meeting, chaired by Helen. Now we have become a considerably bigger group in a short space of time, it was a good idea to take stock and discuss what ideas we had for the future. There is a lot of work involved in organising events, so it was nice to get a positive feedback from those willing to offer their help.

Sadly, at the end of our meeting it was time go home and say our farewells to members and friends. It was time to take my train back to the Netherlands. I must say, I had a wonderful weekend to look back on, my curiosity rewarded, my energies replenished and lovely people I spoke to.

I will hopefully see many again in a month’s time or so, when we will have the chance to meet in Haworth, during the Brontë Society’s AGM.
See you there perhaps?!

Selina Busch

Interview with Helen MacEwan by the European Commission magazine

The weekly staff newspaper of the European Commission (where I work as a translator) did an interview with me about the Brussels Brontë Group. Many members of the group work at the EU institutions in Brussels. The newspaper has a circulation of around 50,000.

Helen MacEwan, an English translator in DGT, talks to Commission en direct about the Brontë sisters’ connection with Brussels and the society she set up to celebrate one of the world’s most fascinating literary families.


How did the Brussels branch of the Brontë Society start?
Soon after moving to Brussels, I re-read Charlotte Brontë’s Villette and became fascinated by her two-year stay in Brussels, on which the novel is based. I started to read more about her Brussels years and the places associated with her stay here. I was already a member of the UK Brontë Society and it seemed logical to start up a branch here because of the importance of Brussels in Charlotte Brontë’s writing. The Society has members worldwide and there were already some in Belgium but no events or meetings had ever been organised here. The group has grown from a small core of about eight people who met in my sitting-room in 2006, to around 150 on our mailing list today. Our events are open to everyone, not just Brontë Society members.

What is the connection between the Brontë sisters and Brussels?
The two eldest of the three sisters, Charlotte (then 25) and Emily (23) came to Brussels in 1842 to study. The family was not well off and they had been employed as governesses but hated the work and wanted to start their own school. They needed to improve their French in order to teach it. They stayed at the Pensionnat Heger, a girl’s boarding school near Place Royale, where they taught English, as well as learning French and also German.

How much of an influence did their time in Brussels have on their work?
On Emily’s work, probably not much, although in Brussels she read some German romantic literature which may have influenced her novel Wuthering Heights. That she was motivated enough to come here at all is amazing, since she rarely left Yorkshire and was always homesick away from the family home on the moors.
But on Charlotte the influence of her time in Brussels was huge. Two of her four novels, The Professor and Villette, are based on her time here, and in Villette she portrays the man she fell in love with, her teacher Monsieur Heger. Villette is about the experience of being an expat in Brussels and when you read the novel after living here it seems much more vivid.

Why do you think that Wuthering Heights has had such an enormous influence on all aspects of culture and continues to be reinterpreted time and time again?
As well as being endlessly analysed by learned critics, it has, of course, great popular appeal and there have been countless films and other adaptations. It fascinates each generation anew. Like Romeo and Juliet, it is a love story, a tragic one with no conven­tional happy ending – Heathcliff and Cathy are never united in life, since she marries someone else and then dies young. It is, in fact, a very odd novel, far removed from a conventional romantic love story. Cathy dies halfway through, and for the second half Heathcliff is obsessed by the idea of being united to her after death. It fires people’s imaginations because the passions are so intense, Emily Brontë is such a dramatic and poetical story-teller, Heathcliff has become everyone’s idea of the romantic Byronic hero, and the wild moorland setting and supernatural elements make the story so haunting. The hero and heroine are larger than life, like characters in an epic, a myth or a Greek tragedy.

Do you think the Brontë sisters were ahead of their time?
Their works were certainly different from other novels of the time, and shocked contemporary readers by their outspo­kenness. In fact, in some ways they had more affinity with the earlier Romantic period of Byron than with the more prudish Victorian literature of their own time. In a sense, they were timeless, not defined by any period. But Charlotte was ahead of her time in depicting feisty single women like Jane Eyre who worked for a living rather than the idealised and more submissive heroines of conven­tional Victorian novels. The youngest of the three sisters, Anne, was also ahead of her time in writing frankly about the trials of a woman in an abusive marriage in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, going into details which were thought scandalous at the time.

In your reading group, do you read other authors too?
Yes, we read 19th century literature in general. Jane Austen is always hugely popular and we also read the other main novelists of the period – Dickens, Thomas Hardy, etc.

What kind of events do you organise?
Apart from the reading group, one of our most popular activities is our regular guided walks around places in Brussels associated with the Brontës’ stay. There is a lot to see and talk about even though the school where they stayed was demolished and the site is now occupied by the Palais des Beaux-Arts.
We also hold regular talks on all aspects of the Brontës. Once a year, we organise a Brontë weekend. In the past, we have had audiences of up to 80 people. The group is multinational and I have been pleasantly surprised by the tremendous interest in the Brontë sisters among people of all national­ities. Many of them were previously unaware of the Brontës’ Brussels connection.

Aside from your passion for literature, what other things interest you?
My other great love is history and one reason I enjoy reading the literature of previous centuries is that it is the best way of getting the feel of a period.

Where are you from, and what has your career path been until now?
I’m British. I studied French and Spanish at university and then took a post-graduate teaching qualification. After some years teaching English as a foreign language in Spain, I moved into translation, also in Spain, working as a company translator at Deloitte, among other firms, before coming to Brussels in 2004.

Interview by Emily Macintosh