Final day in Haworth

Today was all about the Bronte parsonage. It’s a lovely house and the family’s story is obviously very interesting but we both felt it was a bit underwhelming. I thought the focus on the tragedies rather than the books was relentless and a bit ghoulish. The balance seemed out of whack. I did learn some things but my big take away was that I wanted to know more about Patrick, the widowed father, who seemed to be a very forward thinking and compassionate man and an unusual father in that he actively encouraged his daughters to build writing careers and to get published. He believed in love as a guiding principal, not punishment. There’s a description of his campaign to stop the Poor Law Amendment act including a letter he wrote to a Leeds paper in 1837 protesting the cruelty of the bill. If only our politicians today could somehow learn from such a campaign… nothing much changes it seems.
The other extras are reproduction wallpaper, the writing room with the table on which the three sisters wrote, Patrick’s bedroom with it’s sweet patchwork quilt and a tablet on the wall between the parsonage and the church.
The best bit of the day was a lecture on Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The central argument of the lecture was that it fits with the British social realism film movement. It’s a convincing case.
Now I’m in York for three days and I am pooped.