The boiler and Brontëana

The Telegraph & Argus informs about the present status of the Old Schoolroom restoration project:

Action is being taken to protect a listed building where the Bronte sisters and their brother taught, as campaigners prepare a bid to restore the famous building.
The Keighley area committee has stepped in to help finance a new boiler at the Old Schoolroom in Haworth. It is being fitted to protect it over the winter – the old boiler is irreparable – as guardians of the building prepare to raise up to £250,000 towards the £1 million restoration.
They are now preparing bids to meet the balance of the cost to construct a roof, fit windows, install toilets and a kitchen and re-configure the inside.
Helping spearhead the project is John Collinson and Averil Kenyon of Haworth Church-based Bronte Spirit which has taken on the project.
The building, constructed by the Reverend Patrick Bronte, father of the famous sister novelists, Emily, Anne and Charlotte, in 1832, is owned by the church.
His three daughters and their brother Branwell taught at the school which catered especially for the poor of the parish. Mr Collinson said the project was expected to be completed within about two years.
The schoolroom was constructed in three phases – the original in 1832 and the others in 1850 and 1870.
Mrs Kenyon said: “The school room is one of the most important historical buildings in the area and must be conserved for the future.
“It’s a tribute to Patrick Bronte’s work in the village which was impressive.”
It was opened throughout August with an exhibition of photographs of old Haworth and attracted about 2,700 people, which campaigners say illustrates interest in the building.
Keighley Councillor Glen Miller, chairman of Keighley area committee, said: “All three ward members agreed to help fund the boiler because this is a self-help group and needs support.”
It became a weekday school in 1843 when he secured another grant for a salaried teacher and it closed as a school in 1903. (Clive White)

Picture source: Keighley News: John Collinson and Averil Kenyon, of Brontë Spirit, view old photographs with Cllr Glen Miller in the Old Schoolroom.

The Heart of Haworth blog posts an appeal to people living in and around Haworth:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is interested in speaking to anyone who thinks they may own household artefacts, books, drawings or letters that they believe to have belonged to the Brontë family or that have connections with the Brontës or historic Haworth
Throughout October the Brontë Parsonage Museum will be offering free, expert advice on such material to people living in and around Haworth. In addition to finding out what important Brontë or Brontë-related items might still be in private hands, the museum is also keen to encourage local people to use the museum’s resources to find out more about items in their possession and have the opportunity to benefit from conservation advice. (Read more) (Andrew McCarthy)

Tim Holland has an article on To The Center which quotes Shirley as an antecedent of the greedy Wall Street investors:

Almost daily one sees, hears and reads of the abuses and exploitations perpetrated by the residents of the financial community. The authors of these critical reports express outrage while their readers and listeners, who believe themselves to be the objects of the exploitation, are angered by the described callousness and selfishness of the financial manipulator. But why are the actions of the money seekers deemed to be such a surprise? Is all this something new we have not come in contact with before?
In 1849, Charlotte Brontë’s second novel, "Shirley", was published. Set against an industrial backdrop in Yorkshire, England during 1811 and 1812, it was here that the fear and outrage of knitting craftsmen over the introduction of machinery designed to mass produce “stockings” at prices that would undercut the then weaving “cottage” industry, boiled over into violence. The mill owners were accused of lining their own pockets at the expense of the mill workers, who could no longer make a decent living. And so the “Luddite” movement raged through Yorkshire in an attempt to confront the businessman who would place his own personal wealth interest above the well-being of his workers and community.
"All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish; and taken in bodies they are intensely so. The British merchant is no exception to this rule: the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly think too exclusively of making money: they are too oblivious of every national consideration but of that of extending England’s (i. e., their own) commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride in honor, is too dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone would too often make ignominious submission – not at all from the motives Christ teaches, but rather those Mammon instills."
The quote above from Charlotte Brontë’s "Shirley" is a mild one as she explores the self interest of the mill owners and their flagrant appeal to patriotism in making sure England is first and dominant in matters of industry and commerce. The same arguments continue to be put forth (Wall Street must remain the center of the financial world) almost 200 years later and, to our peril, we embrace them.
Charlotte Brontë may not have been a trained economist or even one who made a study of “best practices” in the textile industry, however, as with so many great writers, she was a keen observer of the world in which she lived. Her vantage point was at ground level. “Many of them (tradesmen) are extremely narrow and cold-hearted, have no good feeling for any class but their own, are distant – even hostile to all others; call them useless; seem to question their right to exist; seem to grudge them the very air they breathe, and to think the circumstance of their eating, drinking, and living in decent houses, quite unjustifiable.” (...)
The personality traits and business practices outlined by Charlotte Brontë have not changed since "Shirley" was written and the concepts will not change over the next 200 years. To believe they will is truly foolish. There will be successes but they are always limited. Sooner or later something new will be introduced and the rules will not cover it. It is the very nature of the merchant to exploit the uncovered gap, as he would be remiss if he did not. Corporations are not human beings; they exist for a pure and simple object: profitability. It is the sworn duty of the corporate leader to maximize the objective of the company and will be held accountable for not doing so.
So while "Shirley" exposed an inconvenient truth about the emerging industrial age, Charlotte Brontë did not break new ground in analyzing the psychology of the pursuit of wealth. However, she stands as one of the “reminders” to us that there is no body of historical evidence that supports voluntary regulation as an effective means of protecting consumers, workers or even the country that spawns the industry.

The Bi-College News gives their opinion about the Wuthering Heights covers à la Twilight affaire:

Since its inception, the "Twilight" series has been infecting the pre-teen world like a terrifying zombie plague, turning those who succumb to it into rabid sparkly vampire fanatics who dream of having their own stalker vampire boyfriends and mythical creature love triangles. I could fill up the whole Opinion section just with a rant about how much I loathe this series, but "Twilight" was nice enough to give me a concise reason to hate it these days: its recent mutilation of "Wuthering Heights." (Read more) (Meena Seralathan)

This vampire-Heathcliff obsession is becoming a tiring cliché. Today in the Telegraph, reviewing the TV series True Blood:

[Stephen] Moyer’s vampire is a tragic hero in the Heathcliff mould. The first time he appears on screen he is ordering a bottle of synthetic blood (O-neg, his favourite flavour) in a Louisiana bar. Dark-haired and deathly pale, he exudes a stillness and controlled intensity. His eyes lock with those of waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin), who informs him that they did have some, but no one ordered it, so it went off. 'You’re our first… vampire,’ she says. (Chris Harvey)

A curious Brontë reference appears in this article about new S/F film remakes in Star-News:

Once again, we’re playing with paranoia about rapid, disorienting technological change. Surely things can’t work this perfectly all the time, and what happens when they don’t? (That thought occurred to me Saturday night, while I was watching a rerun of “Devotion,” the old Bronte sisters’ biopic, and Olivia de Havilland’s face suddenly pixelated.) (Ben Steelman)

Terence Jenkins, author of Return, is interviewed in the Croydon Guardian:

The ex-teacher, whose favourite book is Wuthering Heights, writes every day, but finishing his debut book Return meant having to be disciplined. (Samantha Webster)

And goTriad talks with the author Linda Beatrice Brown:

I was in a home where there were lots and lots of books. I was read to a lot by my father. He would read fairy tales, "Winnie-the-Pooh," children's books. Then when I was older, my sisters were big readers, too, and we used to read books together. We would have all read "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew" or "Wuthering Heights," and then we would talk about it. (Erin Rainwater)

Vue Weekly reviews R. Sikoryak's Masterpiece Comics, Kiss a cloud reviews Agnes Grey, Jane Eyre is quoted in an article about e-readers in the Zionsville Times-Sentinel, Broadway World presents yet another production of The Mystery of Irma Vep:

Deconstructed Productions presents Charles Ludlam's comic masterpiece The Mystery of Irma Vep. This smart, clever, quick-change marathon ransacks literary and cinematic pop culture as it satirizes everything from Hitchcock's Rebecca to classic horror films (The Mummy, The Wolf Man) to literary classics like Wuthering Heights and Shakespeare.
The Mystery of Irma Vep is co-produced by the WeHoChurch, and press previews on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 8:00 pm. Opening night is Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 8:00 pm. The show will run for a limited engagement, performing Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 7:00 pm through October 11. The WeHoChurch Space is located at 916 North Formosa Avenue in West Hollywood, CA.

Let's finish this newsround with an appeal to our readers. If someone can disentagle this reference published in The Dominion Post about the New Zealand Fashion Week they will have our absolute admiration:

It was KGB meets the Zambesi style police on the moors of Wuthering Heights where trendy trampers and sporty rockers roam and play. (Carolyn Enting)

Categories: Brontëana, Brontëites, Haworth, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Shirley, Theatre, Wuthering Heights