Cream tea and dandelion coffee

The Times suggests a few 'walks for the family', one of them in Brontë Country:

Brontë country
A great way to bring literature to life for your children. Start at Penistone Country Park and wander across the dramatic Yorkshire moors where the young Brontë sisters played. Many devotees head to the peaceful Brontë Waterfalls, where children can play safely, and carry on to Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse said to have been the inspiration for Wuthering Heights.Finish at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in the picturesque village of Haworth.www.visitbradford.com/bronte-country (Alice Miles)

Incidentally, though certainly not a walk, children (and adults too) might enjoy a ride on the famous Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, whose tours resume today according to The Telegraph and Argus.

Families climbed aboard a classic carriage and were served cream teas by a butler on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway yesterday.
Passengers sat in the UK’s oldest working railway carriage, the Victorian Old Gentleman’s Saloon. Famously used in the 1970 film The Railway Children, it was in action to give tours of Bronte Country. The 1871 wooden carriage, hauled by a Victorian steam locomotive, visited six stations, Haworth, Damems, Oakworth, Ingrow and Keighley, leaving Oxenhope station to the sound of a brass band playing on the platform.
The tours resume today, from Oxenhope at 11.45am, 1.15pm, 2.45pm and 4.15pm. Prices start at £12. (Ben Barnett)

A video can be seen here as well.

Speaking of the railway, The Old Foodie reminds us that,

On this day in 1849, the literary Brontë sisters Anne (1820-1849), Charlotte (1816-1855) and their friend Ellen Nussey travelled by train from their home in Yorkshire to the seaside town of Scarborough. Anne was ill with consumption, and as their brother Bramwell and sister Emily had both died of consumption within the previous year, she was under no illusions as to the seriousness of her condition. She decided to use her small inheritance to fund the trip, in the hope that the sea air would be beneficial. As soon as they arrived, the young women treated themselves to dandelion coffee, and bought season tickets for the spa and the famous Cliff Bridge. Sadly, it was too late for Anne, who was already very ill and frail, and she died in their lodging house only a few days later. [...]
Dandelion coffee was not a cheap alternative in the Bronte sisters’ time. It was a relatively expensive medicinal treat - which seems surprising given that the dandelion grows like a weed in Britain but the coffee bean is of course imported.

Quite interesting to read about the intriguing dandelion coffee. However, while we're at it, the beginning of the story is actually a little less straighforward. Ellen Nussey had agreed to meet Charlotte and Anne at Leeds station on May 23rd. She waited and they never turned up (though a coffin apparently did, and she got quite a fright). She went back home and on May 24th returned to the station and did find them - Anne looking shockingly ill. They decide to stop at York for the night (and some shopping) and them resumed the journey on May 25th, when they finally arrived in Scarborough and drank the dandelion tea in question.

An interesting piece of Brontë-related trivia is to be found on Commander Bond, which has an article on a documentary on Kevin McClory which is to be broadcast tonight in Ireland.

McClory was born in Dun Laoghaire in 1926. He was related to the English novelists, the Brontë sisters and his own life reads like an adventure story. (Devin Zydel)

The wikipedia entry on Mr McClory has a little more info on this:

McClory was born in Dublin. His grandmother, Alice McClory, was related to the Brontë family (Patrick Brontë's mother was a McClory).

We don't really know how many generations there are between Patrick Brontë and Kevin McClory, though. However, the name Alice seems to have run in the family as Patrick's mother is sometimes called Alice too (as well as Ayles, Eleanor and Elinor).

The New York Times reviews The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini.

Rhys is the Caribbean-born writer who spent much of her life in Europe, personified the louche life in ways that have guaranteed her an everlasting cult following and stunningly amplified Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” by writing one of the few great books hitched to an existing classic. That is “Wide Sargasso Sea,” a novel that envisions the story of the first Mrs. Rochester, the one locked in Mr. Rochester’s attic.
To see that among Ms. Rhys’s many alternate title choices for this classic were “Story of the First Mrs. Rochester,” “Le Rouge et le Noir” and “Wild Sea of Wrecks” is to understand how much of her renown may have been built on backhanded good fortune. “The Blue Hour” only furthers that impression. (Janet Maslin)

Western Mail carries an article on artist Gerald Scarfe who gave a talk yesterday at Hay Festival. A screen showed some of his cartoons, among which was...

Gordon Brown was depicted as Heathcliff on the hilltop, cape flying in the wind with the caption Dithering Heights. (Chris Haines)

This great cartoon can be seen here on the artist's website.

Organiser (India) reviews the book 100 Great Books, Masterpieces of All time, edited by John Canning, Rupa & Co, where Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are considered to be two of those 100 great books.

And the Examiner looks for the 'classical inspirations' behind the Twilight saga, Wuthering Heights among them.

On the blogosphere today, you can read about the novel Jillian Dare by Melanie M. Jeschke on Fiction Showcase and read the first chapter here. Jane Eyre, the novel which inspired it, is reviewed by Exclusively Books and Une curiosité de qualité (in French) and makes Szösszenetek (in Hungarian) wonder what would have happened had Rochester been younger than Jane. 5-Squared discusses Villette. And both Tales from a Café Chick and Le Troubadour Urbain (in French) post about Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Anne Brontë, Books, Haworth, Humour, Jane Eyre, Patrick Brontë, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights