Ghosts and Gravestones of Haworth

This book with this beautiful cover - Ghosts and Gravestones of Haworth by Philip Lister - will be released in the next few days (either June 29 or July 1, sources differ). icHuddersfield comments largely on it, its contents and author in an article very much worth reading. If you are interested in the lives (and afterlife too) of so-called ordinary people as well as in the Brontës and their village, then this book is for you.

The stories show that Emily Brontë's immortal story Wuthering Heights of the wild unfettered love between Heathcliff and Cathy was at least in part a reflection of a rough-tough area where characters had to be be strong to survive.
And the strange thing is that Philip discovered that several of the main characters had made the same journey as he had, from these parts to Haworth.
Major players in the story are the Heaton family of Ponden Hall, three miles west of Haworth, with a 350-year connection with the hall and a history that can be traced back to 1285 when William de Heton, of Kirkheaton, bought land in the Ponden area.
Over the years they were to acquire extensive properties and wealth with a Heaton Inheritance to be passed from generation to generation.
Naturally, in this story of ghosts, the family had their own Old Greybeard, whose appearance was said to mean imminent death for one more Heaton.
Even more colourful perhaps is the Rev Edmund Robinson, a striking newcomer from Holmfirth.
Now the Rev Robinson was one of only two clergymen to be omitted from the panel of ministers from 1654 to the present day Parish Church on the main street.
Perhaps that is on account of his profitable sideline of coining - clipping the edges off true coins and using the clippings to make new coins. (Philip says it is possible that some of the coins he clipped to make them go further might have come from the church collection!)
Perhaps it's the fact that the reverend gentleman was eventually sentenced to hang for his activities, or could it be because he was suspended and excommunicated for forging licences and performing illegal marriages?
You have to feel sorry for another curate, the Rev Samuel Redhead who was said to have held the position for less than 28 days in 1819-20 after villagers set about sabotaging his appointment.
First Sunday the packed church staged a deliberately noisy walkout thanks to their clogs, the second proceedings descended to farce with the arrival of a half-witted man riding into church facing backwards on an ass and a third starred a drunken sweep trying to embrace the poor cleric.
Happily he was to return many years later - after fleeing from the back door of the Black Bull Inn - to a hearty welcome.
For the rest, this book is a reminder that hereabouts life could be nasty, brutish and short in a place which Philip's grandfather notably said was "two coats colder than any other place in Yorkshire".
In Victorian Haworth the main killers were cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, says Philip, with cholera the most feared because it killed people of all social classes.
Add colourful characters like Patrick Brontë, who slept with a pair of loaded pistols by his bedside and discharged them every morning by firing at the church bell tower; John Brown the "Knave of Trumps" who introduced Patrick's son Branwell to freemasonry and probably drink; the Haworth poisoner, the wronged maiden, the hanged highwayman; and Mad Grimshaw minister extraordinary who recruited with Bible and horsewhip and you can see this was no place for shrinking violets.
All tastefully arranged by Philip in sets of 13, whether it be gravestones, more gravestones, the graveyard cookbook - anyone for squirrel burgers, fried worms, grave-snails in garlic or church mice poached in communion wine? - or even 13 provocative last thoughts.
Not recommended bedtime reading for those of a more nervous disposition!

Sounds great, doesn't it? (Except for the cookbook!) If you like it as much as we do, you can get it through Amazon or through the publisher's website.

Details:
Paperback 96 pages
Publisher: Tempus Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0752439588
Price: £8.99 (however, both websites offer a cheaper price)

Categories: Books, Haworth