Brontë festivals and plaques

The Telegraph and Argus is looking forward to the Brontë Festival of Women's Writing as well as the Brontë Free Festival-Words on the Street which will take place from September 23 to 25.

Influential female authors, poets and writers from this country and across the globe will feature.

And to coincide with that, a family-orientated Bronte Free Festival-Words on the Street initiative is being organised.

It will include storytelling, animal-themed family yoga, pop-up poetry, mural art, craft workshops and street performers, in and around the museum grounds. The activities are free and no booking is required.

The Festival of Women's Writing offers 19 events, and in a first for the festival, most activities will be available to either attend in person or watch online.

The theme is Defying Expectations, which ties in with an exhibition of the same name currently running in the parsonage.

Co-created by historical consultant Dr Eleanor Houghton, the exhibition focuses on – and reimagines – the garments and accessories worn by Charlotte Bronte.

Festival highlights will include a performance by musicians, composers and songwriters Alexandra Braithwaite, Sophie Galpin and Beckie Wilkie of their soundtrack to the 2020 Royal Exchange Theatre production of Wuthering Heights – followed by a question-and-answer session.

Also, there will be a poetry reading by Monika Radojevic – winner of Stormzy’s #Merky Books New Writers' Prize. She will read from her collection, Teeth in the Back of My Neck.

And TV chef Rosemary Shrager will give a cooking tutorial centred on a recipe inspired by the Brontës. Resource packs will be sent to participants cooking from home.

People who can't attend events in person will be able to see some streamed live via Zoom or YouTube, or in other cases have recordings emailed.

Just three events will be in-person only – two creative workshops and a ‘coffee chat’ with Nicky Peacock, the parsonage’s newest writer in residence, who will answer questions about her work.

Sassy Holmes, programme officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: "We’re incredibly excited for this year’s festival. The line-up is full of amazing and talented women who aren't afraid to speak their mind and have been ‘defying expectations’ in their own individual ways for years."

Tickets for events range in price from £3 to £10, or weekend 'bundles' are available – £55 including admission to all in-person events and to the museum, or £40 for all online events. (Alistair Shand)

The Telegraph and Argus also reports that London's famous Blue Plaques will be rolled out beyond London, including Bradford.

The London only policy has meant that while there are blue plaques to celebrate calligraphers, wig makers and the scientist who gave different cloud types there official names in the capital, noted figures like the Bradford born Brontë sisters and David Hockney have yet to be officially recognised by the scheme because of where they were born. [...]

Responding to the news, a spokesperson for Bradford Civic Society, which administers blue plaques in Bradford, said: “We have long called for regional cities to get the same level of heritage recognition that London gets, so this announcement is welcome.

“As part of our pioneering work on blue plaques in Bradford, we have had some initial discussions with Historic England and other national bodies about potential future partnerships.”

If the national scheme progresses, people will be able to nominate people and places that should be celebrated with a blue plaque.

It recent years the Civic Society have created and installed a number of blue plaques around the city.

These include at the Bronte Sisters’ birthplace in Thornton and at St George’s Hall. (Chris Young)

Revista Bula (in Portuguese) might be examining Charlotte Brontë's 'last words' too closely.

Charlotte Brontë

Não vou morrer. É verdade? Ele não nos separará. Nós somos muito felizes.

As últimas palavras de Charlotte Brontë revelam uma mistura comovente de esperança, amor e talvez negação. Ela faleceu jovem, apenas nove meses após seu casamento, tornando sua expressão de felicidade e desejo de não ser separada ainda mais pungente. A referência a “Ele” pode ser interpretada como um aceno a Deus ou ao destino, elementos que muitas vezes desempenham um papel significativo em seus romances, como “Jane Eyre”. Nesse contexto, suas palavras finais podem ser vistas como um testamento ao poder do amor e da fé, mesmo diante da mortalidade iminente. A trágica brevidade de sua vida e casamento contrasta fortemente com a riqueza emocional e a profundidade de seus escritos, tornando suas últimas palavras uma espécie de epitáfio poético para uma vida cheia de paixão e talento literário. (Helena Oliveira) (Translation)

According to El placer de la lectura (Spain), Jane Eyre is one of 25 books to be read at least once in a lifetime.