A woman who was different. And not afraid to be so

Great British Life has an article by Christa Ackroyd on her Brontë history and the campaign to save the Brontë Birthplace.

If anyone ever asks me my favourite book I answer without hesitation… Wuthering Heights. It is both violent and dark, and certainly not a love story no matter how Sir Lawrence Oliver portrayed it in the first of many screen adaptations.

Instead Wuthering Heights is a story of jealousy and obsession, of anger and of prejudice shown towards the young boy found wandering the docks of Liverpool and brought home to live with the Earnshaw family high on the Pennines in Yorkshire. Who Heathcliff is and where he comes from remain a mystery in Emily Brontë’s one and only novel, as does his ethnicity even though he bemoans the fact that had he been born with “fair hair and fair skin “ he could have risen above the cruelty shown towards him after his protector Mr Earnshaw dies.

But prejudice of birth was certainly at the heart of the story and why wouldn’t it be? Anti-slave campaigner and Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce was Patrick Brontë’s sponsor at Cambridge. And we know Patrick shared many of the issues of the day with his three young girls, issues which were placed at the very heart of the books they wrote. Gender inequality, poverty, lack of self esteem and opportunity were the very foundations of the seven novels the sisters produced in secret. And may I suggest remain as relevant today almost two centuries later.

Emily Brontë was as complex as the book she authored. Prone to anger, it is known she was furious when elder sister Charlotte discovered her secret poems and announced plans to publish them in a book. She was also a loner, preferring the company of her animals and the moors to the company of strangers. Indeed when sent away either for education or for employment she suffered such severe homesickness it was thought she would die if they did not bring her home to the Parsonage and it’s wild surroundings. Small wonder her ghostly character Kathy [sic], who haunts the pages of Wuthering Heights, dreams she has died and gone to heaven and was so distraught she begged the angels to return her to the moors and awoke ‘ sobbing with joy ‘ .

As it was Emily died as she lived, stubborn and strong to the end, refusing to see “ no meddling doctor”, when tuberculosis set in, until it was too late. After her death Charlotte wrote of Emily that “an interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world”. She was different indeed. But oh so powerful to a young girl like me.

When I was that young girl I fell in love with Emily Brontë and her Wuthering Heights. Adopted and brought to Bradford as a tiny baby I understood Heathcliff’s belief that no matter who he became he may never entirely fit in and of questions about a past that would never be answered. Like Emily, his creator I also suffered loneliness often without reason, even amidst a crowd. Fortunately my wonderful father, he was never my adopted father to me, did too.

As a result one day he took me to a tiny stone built terrace in Thornton, Bradford and together we stood outside the humble house where three famous sibling writers were born and later to the Parsonage in Haworth, where he reminded me that they were three girls from Bradford who never gave up, never accepted they were second best and whose words were still read the world over. From that day until now I wanted to write .. and right wrongs. I had found my place and my heroes in three women who were told they couldn’t and did.

Recently I wept happy tears and remembered that moment as another young girl,aged about eleven years old, stood by the fireplace inside that little house in Thornton, besides which the three girls and their brother were born and told a crowded room she wanted to be an author. It was a perfect moment of synchronicity. And it brought the memories flooding back.

The fact it was possible to see and hear of this young girl’s shared inspiration at the Brontë Birthplace celebration open day before refurbishment begins was not lost on me. Because of the hard work and dedication shown by a small group of volunteers that little house and the occupants who changed my life is for the first time in public ownership. Almost a thousand people came that day. The Brontës are revered not just by me.

As Bradford 2025 celebrates it tenure as City of Culture you will be able to stay in one of the themed bedrooms one named and designed to reflect each of the sisters who were born there. Charlotte’s will be strong and aspirational, decorated with finery such as she brought to the Parsonage to reflect her worldwide fame and monetary independence gained through her writing as the author of Jane Eyre and her three other works. Emily’s will be of a more nature inspired simplicity reflecting the colours of her beloved moors and the strength of the woollen industry which grew around them. Little Anne’s as the youngest will be chintzier and lighter in touch, though make no mistake the Tennant of Wildfell Hall with it’s theme of escaping from domestic violence was the most controversial of all the sister’s works. You will be able to sit a while with your favourite Brontë novel in the cafe beside the fireside of ambition. But just as important will be our younger visitors who will be invited to walk in the footsteps of greatness and believe they too can achieve.

It is among my proudest moments to be part of that committee. It reconnects me to my home city, to my wonderful father and mother who knew me so well, but above all to a woman who was different. And not afraid to be so.

The Herald Scotland gives 4 stars to the Jane Eyre performances at the Botanic Garden in Glasgow.

A suitably dreich Botanic Gardens played host on Tuesday night to Jennifer Dick’s new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 proto feminist classic, which opens this year’s largely non-Shakespearian Bard in the Botanics summer season.

Judging by the line-up, the very current focus this year is on strong women making their way in the world in the face of overriding misogyny. With Dick resetting the action of Bronte’s taboo-busting 19th century novel from the grim north of England to even bleaker Scottish soil, little orphan Jane is buffeted from pillar to post as she embarks on a gradual getting of wisdom. Until, that is, she meets Mr Rochester, a posh boy himbo with a secret in the attic that comes back to haunt him.

Up until then, Jane has carved out her future with ferocious ambition and an unwillingness to suffer fools, even if her bullying cousin John does use knowledge as a weapon when he belts her with a well read paperback.

This doesn’t stop her from becoming a Highland governess, while her terminal frisson with Rochester sees them spar as equals. Happy ever afters don’t come easy for Jane, alas, as lovers of Bronte’s original first person mould-breaker will be all too aware.

Stephanie McGregor embodies the play’s heroine with a studied seriousness that suggests Jane can and frequently does take on all comers en route to surviving as an independent woman.

Johnny Panchaud similarly does the business as Rochester, with the pair at the centre of Dick’s own production. The remaining cast of four burl their way through multiple roles on Heather Grace Currie’s bothy like set, featuring a backdrop frieze of Scottish woodlands.

With a microphone utilised to conjure assorted ghosts, noises off and first wives, this makes for a faithful rendering of Brontë’s liberating yarn. As Jane finds her power both in her thumbnail sketch descriptions of those around her and in her own artistic endeavours, she points the way for women of the future to be able to write their own story. (Neil Cooper)

The Guardian reviews the adaptation of Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows' My Lady Jane.

I would love to have been in the room when My Lady Jane was pitched – either in its original book form or as an adaptation to the commissioners at Prime Video.

“It’s the story of Lady Jane Grey.”

“Who?”

“The Nine Day Queen.”

“Ah, one of Henry the Eighth’s six wives? Or Henry the Sixth’s eight wives? I forget. Also, walk me through the Jane Eyre/Charlotte Brontë thing again.”

“Jane Eyre: title. Brontë: author. Lady Jane Grey: great-granddaughter of Henry VII, great-niece of Henry VIII, cousin to Mary I, Elizabeth I and Edward VI. Succeeded him – for the aforementioned nine days – and preceded Mary and Elizabeth. Executed for her trouble.” (Lucy Mangan)

Stereogum features a cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights by CMAT.

Last month, CMAT sang Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” during her London concert. That performance was so impassioned and theatrical that today the Irish musician shared it officially, and it’s worthwhile. (Danielle Chelosky)