ISSUE OUT & HAVE A WALK

Many a drive across the Pennines has taught me that days of sunshine and blue sky on the Moore's are few and far between; from what I can tell, those rolling hills seem to be covered by perpetual grey sky and mist. So, when we woke up to dark clouds and drizzle on the morning my Dad and I had planned a visit to The Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, it didn't put us off. The chances of visiting on a day when hoods and umbrella's weren't mandatory had always been slim to nil. Besides, there's something fitting about visiting the Moorland of Bronte Country on a gloomy day, since the sun didn't shine on the family all too often anyway.

We parked on a steep street on the edge of the village overlooking the valley. Once we'd got Charlotte suitably bundled up against the rain, we began the climb up the Moor-side to the top of the hill, where we saw the tower of the famous church, and next to it, tucked behind a blackened stone wall, the Parsonage that housed those famous sisters. Dad took Charlotte for a walk while I ventured inside to see first hand the rooms where the Bronte family lived, and worked, and wrote.

The Parsonage remains today just as it was when Charlotte, who outlived all but her father, lived there. The large square rooms are still home to the furniture the family placed there, and their portraits and drawings still hang on the walls. The quiet upstairs of the house is something of a shrine to Charlotte, with tokens from her life entombed in glass cases for all to inspect. Poems penned in her tiny joined up writing, flawless embroidery swatches and dainty lace work, sketches and portraits. So many talents are on display that it slips your mind that she was known for her writing.

From the upstairs window you look out onto the Church, of which the girls father was Parson. The church itself has been renovated, though the Churchyard remains just as it was when the Bronte women knew it. I can't describe the place better than them- 'It seemed to be all graves - gravestones stood ranked all round; you walked on a pavement lettered with dead names; the graves had solemnly invaded the garden of the parsonage itself, which was as a little oasis of life in the midst of the dead.'

I met Dad and Charlotte and we made our way from where the Parsonage stands at the very top of the hill down onto the High Street. From the Parsonage we passed the church, next the school where Charlotte taught, and then the Bull Inn where Branwell Bronte, her artist brother, drank. Each of these buildings which claim a part in the life of the Bronte family are in such a close proximity to each other, barely moments from their home. And in the other direction, a hop and a skip from the Parsonage, is the gate that opens onto the Moorland where Emily went to do her thinking. At once, the circumference of their lives was both vast and tiny, and there in Haworth we can get a little glimpse of it. 'Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth; they fit like a snail to its shell.' Somehow, I think that after walking around the rooms where they were written, I love the novels of Ann, Emily, and Charlotte even more.