Wednesday 25 January 2017

TO WALK INVISIBLE a dramatisation of the Brontes lives by Sally Wainwright


To Walk Invisible is a drama documentary written and directed by Sally Wainwright, about the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne , their brother Branwell and their father Patrick during the years 1845 to 1849. This date span is dealt with flexibly. There are flash backs to childhood  when Branwell receives a present of some toy soldiers and the children use these soldiers, whose individual figures, they name, to write  poems, plays and create magazines and novelettes. They place them within a world they call Glasstown. Later as they grow older, Charlotte and Branwell extend this by creating their own country called, Angria, and Emily and Anne create their world called ,Gondal. These imaginary worlds are interlaced in the programme to show their early influences and their development as authors and artists. It references the time after 1849 with obituaries for Branwell, Emily and Anne and describes what happens to Charlotte and Patrick Bronte ,their father, at a later date.

The moors near Haworth.

The programme begins at a time after Branwell and Anne have left their governess and tutor roles for the Robinson Family at Thorpe Green and its emotional aftermath. It also deals with the dramatic event where Anne and Charlotte travel to London to visit their publishers Smith, Elder and Co on Cornhill in The City. The final part fades into the present day, showing  modern tourists  inside the parsonage  and we are then taken to the tourist gift shop and a view of the wild looking statue of the three sisters that is positioned beside the shop. The end is a little confusing seemingly becoming an advert for the Bronte Parsonage bookshop and the Bronte Society. It is linked to an English Literature course provided by the Open University.

The statues of Anne, Charlotte and Emily beside the Haworth museum shop.

Sally Wainwright, who wrote and produced ,To Walk Invisible, was an obvious choice to make this programme. She is a gritty Yorkshirewoman who understands the Yorkshire way of life. The fact that she is a ,”Yorkshire lass,” imbued with the landscape, people and a Yorkshire sensibility, connects her to the Brontes in no small way. She was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 1963. She was brought up in Sowerby Bridge where she attended Triangle C of E Primary School and Sowerby Bridge Grammar School. She went on to attended the University of York reading English. Intellectually, socially and emotionally she was formed by Yorkshire. Like the Brontes she started writing from an early age, the age of nine. While at university she had a play called ,”Hanging On,” put on at the Edinburgh Festival. She graduated from the University of York and became a bus driver to finance her writing. The Brontes did what was available to them too, to earn money. They became tutors , governesses and teachers which they hated but stuck with these  jobs because there was nothing else for women in their situation and the family needed money. Wainwright came from that sort of position too, albeit in the present day. Sally Wainwright has gone on to create very successful television dramas including, At Home With The Braithwaites, Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley, all plays set in Yorkshire about Yorkshire people and she has also written for Coronation Street and The Archers. You could say she was predestined to write this drama about the lives of these Yorkshire writers, the Brontes.


Sally Wainwright.

There are two main strands in this biopic. There is a focus on Branwell, his attempts at becoming a professional artist, and writer and his dissolute character; an overriding precociousness believing the world owed him recognition as a great artist and writer. This is overlaid by his increasing drunkenness and alcoholism. We see the Bronte family struggling to barely function at times. We witness Branwell, almost destroying his father and sisters. The swearing and the implied and threatened physical abuse adds a bitter edge to the whole thing.
The second strand involves the literary pursuits of Anne, Emily and Charlotte, under the unbearable stresses caused by Branwell. Eventually, they kept their literary efforts a secret from him.  They wrote separately from each other, although they did use each other as critics. The contents of their novels, The Tennent of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, reflect the intensity of the life they lived and the self analysis they went through about relationships, moral conflicts and the many hardships they themselves underwent as tutors and governesses. Just being a Bronte seemed hard. 
Branwell wrote to the editor of Blackwoods Magazine; their father Patrick was a subscriber. Branwell had sent the editor some examples of his writing in the hope of gaining employment.
“Haworth 4th January 1837
Now, is the trouble of writing a single line,to outweigh the certainty of doing good to a fellow creature and the possibility of doing good to yourself?- Will you still so wearisomely refuse me a word, when You can neither know what you refuse or whom you are refusing? Do you think your magazine so perfect that no edition to its power would be either possible or desirable? Is it pride which actuates you- or custom- or prejudice?- Be a man-Sir! And think no more of these things! Write to me-….”
You can sense Branwell’s frustration at not getting a reply. However, he is also being rude and on the verge of insulting the editor. Branwell  did not take rejection well. Throughout his short life any job or positon or talent he had was wasted. It has been suggested, that if Branwell was living now, he would be diagnosed with attention deficit syndrome.Wainwright captures this instability in her portrayal of Branwell. 

Haworth Parsonage today.

 Blackwoods Magazine was a periodical begun by William Blackwood in 1817. It was a combative magazine with radical views not just about politics but also religion and society. Charlotte, Emily and Anne were permitted to read these articles, in fact Patrick Bronte encouraged his daughters to read widely and no books were off limits in his library. Patrick taught his children literature, geography, history, mathematics, the classics, Latin, French and poetry. He encouraged them to go walking on the moors and observe nature and experience the elements. All these things were to influence their writing.



The front cover of an edition of Blackwoods magazine.

An underlying theme in, To Walk Invisible, is the source of their creativity and their thinking about the world. The education and the breadth of reading was one aspect but playing and imagining was a very large part of their creative development as well. Creativity is something which schools today know they should have time for but  is not easy to include in the everyday school timetable.  The toy soldiers that Branwell was given at an early age triggered the creation of whole worlds, which existed alongside their actual lives. In their letters and diaries, it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between the real world and their imaginative worlds. Perhaps they didn’t separate them.
The biopic reveals how the  Reverend Patrick Bronte provided the money, from his meagre income, for Branwell’s art education and the travelling expenses to go to interviews.This caused the family to make sacrifices financially  so that Branwell might pursue a career. Branwell, however,wasted his fathers and the family’s money. This is highlighted in To Walk Invisible most sharply when we follow Branwell's abortive visit to London to apply for entry to the Royal Academy. He was granted an interview at The Royal Academy and travelled to London, using the families much needed money but he never made it to the interview. He spent his time drinking  before eventually returning to Haworth.
He got into debt and was nearly arrested on occasions only for his father to bail him out. He became a tutor to the children of the Robinson family at Thorpe Green but began an affair with Mrs Robinson, who Branwell described in one letter to a friend as, "dark eyed and beautiful." He complained that she wouldn’t leave him alone. He was dismissed from this post and the experience hastened  his sinking into drug addiction and alcoholism. Anne had also been a governess to the children at Thorpe Green and resigned just before Branwell's dismissal. Strangely the children remained in contact with Anne.They seemed to have formed an attachment to her.

The Black Bull Inn in Haworth where Branwell would go drinking.

Branwell was  a walking, breathing disaster, not only to himself but to the rest of his family. One aggressive scene in the film depicts a burly gentleman confronting Branwell outside the Black Bull Inn, situated at the top of Haworth High Street just outside the gates leading to the church and the Parsonage. The man wants his money and threatens Branwell. Emily intervenes and stands toe to toe, face to face with the man and threatens to hit him harder than he threatens to hit Branwell.  On another occasion Branwell is in such a drunken state, dragging himself home, the three sisters walk past trying to ignore him but Emily turns and goes back to him and holds and cradles him. Emily, for all her harshness and austere outlook, can’t help her feelings of love for her brother. It is a dour production. The clothing is muted, dark colours, the skies are overcast or the lighting is toned down on cloudless scenes. The language is violent at times, with swear words delivered with strong Yorkshire accents.There are scenes that verge on the physically violent. It gives a very powerful sense of the hard and difficult lives the Brontes lead.

The Chapter Coffee House was situated near here next to St Pauls Cathedral.

One of the most dramatic scenes in the programme is when Charlotte and Anne go to London to confront Charlotte’s publishers, Smith and Elder at 65 Cornhill in the City. A problem had arisen. Emily and Anne had a different publisher, a Mr Newby. There had been a lot of speculation in the newspapers as to who Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell actually were. Mr Newby was the publisher for Emily and Annes’ aliases, Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte) and Acton Bell (Anne Bronte) while Smith and Elder published Charlotte's work under the name of Currer Bell.  Mr Newby had caused speculation by suggesting that they were one and the same person. Having suggested this and because he had the manuscripts of Ellis and Acton Bell, he put it about that he had the rights to publish Currer Bells next novel after the great success of Jane Ayre. Smith and Elder were obviously very concerned about this and thought that Charlotte (Currer Bell ) had given her next manuscript to Mr Newby. They wrote to Currer Bell ( Charlotte Bronte) setting out their concerns. Even the sisters  own publishers did not know who they were other than by the aliases. Charlotte, thought it right to visit Smith and Elder on Cornhill to set things straight. She wanted all three of them to go but Emily refused. In the end just herself and Anne made the journey. 

A map drawn by Patrick Bronte to show his daughters Charlotte and Anne where the Chapter Coffee House was located.

The scene depicted in the programme follows closely the details of the visit to their publishers that Charlotte gave to a friend, Mary Taylor, in a letter, from Haworth, dated 4th September 1848.
“ We arrived at the Chapter Coffee House ( A cheap boarding house that members of the clergy used situated in, Paternoster Lane, next to St Pauls Cathedral) .. about eight o’clock in the morning. We washed ourselves- had some breakfast-sat a few minutes and then set off in queer, inward excitement, to 65 Cornhill. Neither Mr Smith nor Mr Williams knew we were coming- they had never seen us- they did not know whether we were men or women- but had always written to us as men.
We found 65- to be a large bookseller’s shop in a street almost as bustling as the Strand- we went in- walked up to the counter- there were a great many young men and lads here and there- I said to the first I could accost- “May I see Mr Smith-?” he hesitated, looked a little surprised- but went to fetch him-We sat down and waited a while- looking at some books on the counter-publications of theirs well known to us- many of which they had sent us copies as presents. At last somebody came up and said dubiously, “Did you want to see me, Ma’am?” “Is it Mr Smith?” I said looking up through my spectacles at a young, tall, gentlemanly man. “It is.” I then put his own letter into his hand addressed to Currer Bell. He looked at it- then at me- again- yet again- I laughed at his queer perplexity- a recognition took place- I gave my real name-“Miss Bronte”- We were both hurried from the shop into a little back room…”

The site of 65 Cornhill today. This was the site of Smith and Elder , Charlotte Brontes publisher.

This portrays Charlotte Bronte's propensity for the dramatic, not only in her writing, but in her life too. Many of her letters are vivid descriptions portraying her emotions, feelings and thoughts.
There were few opportunities for work for the unmarried daughters of poor clergy men. One thing they did acquire was an education which enabled them to be teachers and governesses. Their Aunt Bronte, their fathers sister, who lived with them after their mothers death, provided the money for Charlotte and Emily to spend time at the Pensionnat Heger run by  Monsieur Heger in Brussels. Charlotte's emotional attachment to ,Monsieur Heger, that developed while she was in Brussels, is not covered by this programme however. They learned French and some Italian and German. Ability with languages made them far more employable as teachers.They thought about setting up their own school in Haworth and had notices printed advertising ,”The Misses Brontes Establishment,” offering an extensive educational experience including a range of languages, mathematics,  writing , music, drawing, needlework and history. This was not successful, perhaps because of the remote location of the parsonage in Haworth.


Some buildings in Haworth near the church and the parsonage.

“To Walk Invisible,” has received some criticism for its harsh portrayal of difficult lives, the stresses placed on them all by Branwell and the sense of desperation  the three sisters felt in needing to make a living and earn money. We can learn something of their lives by reading their letters and through their novels and now through this television programme. The themes of their books reveal much. Anne wrote about the plight and hardships of being a governess in Agnes Grey. The Tennent of Wildfell Hall dealt with the topic of marital abuse and in particular the abuse of women that was exceedingly shocking to Victorian sensibilities and is pertinent today. Anne Bronte is becoming a woman’s movement icon.
“I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other.” 
Anne Bronte: The Tennent of Wildfell Hall
Emily wrote about the strength of human passion to almost a surreal level in Wuthering Heights and Charlotte dealt with issues of fidelity and love and morality in Jane Eyre.  
“Feeling . . . clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “. . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now.” 
Charlotte Bronte:Jane Eyre

A wooden carved panel on the door of 32 Cornhill depicting Charlotte and Anne Bronte meeting William Makepeace Thackeray at the offices of Smith, Elder and Co.

I think “To Walk Invisible,” captures many of the issues in the lives of the Bronte sisters. It can be said it is a modern view and that it is sensational but the evidence shows that there were sensational elements to their lives and their lives had rough and harsh elements.   “To Walk Invisible,” is a powerful piece of television drama. “Eeh by gum! Flippin eck!” 

References:
 http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-on/tv/walk-invisible

https://www.bronte.org.uk/

The Brontes: A Life In Letters by Juliet Barker

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte




Wednesday 4 January 2017

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION (Records and rebels 1966-1970)


At the Victoria and Albert Museum  between 10 September 2016 - 26 February 2017

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum recently to see the exhibition about the social, political, artistic and economic revolutions that took place in the late 1960s. This was a nostalgic experience for Marilyn and myself. We were teenagers in the 1960s,  the most developmental period of our lives, both emotionally and physically  . The revolutions that happened in the 1960s were very important to us, shaping our ideas, and responses to life. This personal connection with this period is a perfect example of why understanding and engaging with history is so important to the human condition. To develop as humans, we need to reflect. Understanding the past is a form of reflection and the study of history is a collective reflection.



I remember the 60’s; however the saying goes that some people who lived through those times don’t remember anything, for various reasons. I remember doing my o’levels in a small school in Shropshire and learning about General Wolfe in 1759 fighting the  battle of  Quebec; The South Sea Bubble , its causes and its implications, about Clive of India, the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions, a time which was  marked by a period of revolutions, echoing the time  this exhibition relates to. I remember reading 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell and Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Laurie Lee's, Cider With Rosie and John Berger’s, Ways of Seeing and later on , when I was training to be a teacher, The Comprehensive School by Robin Pedley.  These books, in conjunction with what was going on in the world shaped my political, and social views and shaped my emotional life too. I remember, in my mid-teens, going in a coach with a group from the school I attended in Liverpool at the time, to Liverpool Cathedral, the Protestant one, for an interfaith service and experienced Ian Paisley leading a mob of Northern Ireland Protestants in a noisy and boisterous chanting of anti-Catholic slogans and beating the sides and windows of our coach with their placards. That was thrilling.  After I finished school at the end of the 1960s I wore flared Levi jeans, my hair grew long and bushy, I grew a beard of sorts and I listened to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hendrix and Dylan and  so many more. I remember reading the poetry of Ted Hughes, visceral stuff and that of Thom Gunn, Sylvia Plath, George Macbeth , John Wain and Philip Larkin. The Second Vatican Council took place between (1962–65). That changed the format of the mass and prescribed a physical structure for how any new Catholic church should be built to fit in with the new thinking about the mass. Pope John XXIII advocated, what was thought of, as a more liberal approach to religion.Women were given a slightly, some might say cosmetic, higher profile role within the church. They could be ministers of communion.They were allowed to read the Epistle and some of the prayers during mass.Pope John XXIII advocated a more questioning approach to religion. It seemed to me you could question as long as the answers were what the church advocated.  He did not go far enough for many and too far for others. He was anti-abortion and anti-contraceptives but advocated more natural forms of birth control. This  has caused arguments ever since within the church and society as a whole. The Catholic Church remains an authoritarian patriarchy to this day. Abortion and the pill, freedom of thought, student rioting in Paris and in London against the Vietnam War; the more I sit here and think the more I remember and try and work out what it all meant and what it means now.
I remember all these things that crowd my thoughts in a sort of jumble. It was confusing at the time and even now I struggle to make sense of it. A lot of this stuff made my early life a challenging thought provoking time. My beliefs and the way I thought about life to begin with were influenced  by my grandparents beliefs and stories of their past, my parents views and the life they lived, the Catholic religion that I was imbued with from an early age and its very powerful strictures on the way to live and think. The Catholic Church was epitomized for me by Cannon Ibbit , my local parish priest in Woolston and the De La Mennais Brothers who taught me at St Mary’s College in Bitterne Park. They were benign to some extent and supportive but their guidance always lead directly to the rules of the church.There was no wavering from ,"the straight and narrow."These revolutions were powerful counterweights to these influences and my learned responses to life. This new way of living was presented in the news, the way people all around started to dress and behave, in books, in the cinema, in the music I began to listen to, in attitudes and in what people spoke about. Have you noticed that your inner thoughts and impulses remain hidden because they don’t fit what with what you have always been told. Even though you are thinking and feeling them, until you hear of others’ experiences, you can’t acknowledge them without them causing some sort of pain and rupture within you. Once you know others  think like you and are forming ideas similar to yours its like being given permission. Then you feel liberated and not alone in your inner responses and you can then permit yourself to  think and do the things you were becoming  aware of. We do need permission to do, say and believe things and it often takes others braver than ourselves to say and do these things first.
The exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum  charts the history of this time. It looks at social changes that included experimentation with drugs to enhance our minds, new ways of living, creating new social orders within communes and new economic models based on adapting to the  world in more harmonious ways. There were new concepts of communication. Cultural changes happened in music, drama, films, writing and art and a rewriting of history from the points of view of ethnic minorities, women and the working classes. Political changes included civil rights, women’s liberation, anti war movements,  education, and the creation of  new political movements. Many of these experiments have continued and  led to ways of living, doing, thinking and believing that we have now. Some experiments were disastrous such as the experimentation with mind enhancing drugs. The good effects were far outweighed by the detrimental effects. Music has gone on to develop through more and more synergies, the coming together of music  from various cultures. This is also seen in  the development of art and literature, developing new ways of seeing and thinking. Politics has changed, through new ways of communication and people feeling free to challenge, ask questions and promote alternative ideas.  Barriers to real meritocracy and equality still remain such as the two tier system of education we have, the private sector and the state sector. Womens employment still has glass ceilings and poor working practices which hamper their development within organisations. Consumerism has taken over much. There is a monitory price on everything.  It seems that we need a market economy for things to exist.
This exhibition uses three different texts from three different periods  to show how revolutions in thoughts, ideas, ways of living and politics are not just about the 1960s and that the new ideas that came to fruition in the 1960s were influenced by ideas from ages past. It is five hundred years since the publication of Thomas More’s,” Utopia ,” in which inhabitants of a fictional island reject intolerance, personal gain and property, and instead find peace and contentment as part of a community.” 



Three hundred years after More’s, Utopia, William Blake wrote “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” He raged against,” mind formed manacles,” and commented, “ if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” Perhaps the use of LSD in the 1960s was  about the search for the same sort of enlightenment. 

The third text was written at the start of the 1960s. “The Port Huron Statement,” It addressed the cold war, the nuclear arms race, and called for the democracy of individual participation. It called for the means for the individual to participate in the social decisions determining the quality and the direction of his life.



The exhibition portrays Britain and America at this time but more specifically London  and San Francisco. It shows the sharing of social, political and musical ideas. The traumas created by US politics and its involvement in South East Asia are covered. It displays the counter culture and underground movements in music, art and the marches against racism, especially in the US south and the anti-Vietnam War marches in London and Washington and the student protests in Paris. It portrays the new youth cultures in the use of drugs, clothes, experimental living, music, art and writing. 




There is a large section in the exhibition focused on the Beatles and their development of new styles including the use of transcendental meditation, LSD, Indian influences from Ravi Shanker and their exploration of different sounds and instruments. The exhibition shows this through their musical transitions from   Revolver, Rubber Sole to Sgt Peppers. They wrote love songs, protest songs and music derived from the use of LSD. There were jokes and biographical memories included in their work. The Beatles moved from live performances to working in the studio and this helped in creating these developing styles. The development of their music was something they would not have been able to do to such an extent if they had concentrated on live performances. I always think it is a thrilling experience to see original drafts. To see the fresh, immediate creation just as it was made, gets you close to the creator and the creative process. John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for, “Tomorrow Never Knows, “is displayed. There are the handwritten lyrics for Lucy in The Sky with scribbled corrections and crossings out.
This extract from a poem entitled, “On The Move,” by a young poet, Thom Gunn, encapsulated the youth of the time.
A minute holds them, who have come to go:
The self defined astride the created will
They burst away; the towns they travel through
Are home for neither bird nor holiness
For birds and saints complete their purposes
At worst one is in motion; and at best
Reaching no absolute in which to rest
One is always nearer by keeping still.


Today we can see how things have developed. The internet has created a sort of universal “mind,” something that LSD failed to do. It was the students coming out of the universities of the 1960s who invented the internet. Those who began APPLE and GOOGLE, created ways of communal working  where creativity and sharing ideas, a counter culture concept, formed and grew these great organisations of today. Music and fashions were freed from the constraints of the past  and they have continued to develop and be continuously creative. However  consumerism has attached itself to what has developed  and all these countercultural concepts and ideas have in many ways been brought into a new main stream culture of business and wealth. Some of the most tenacious parts of the old order have remained . We still have a class system in this country controlled by an education system split into private and state. Some people would like to destroy the National Health Service which although begun soon after the second world war in 1948 was a forerunner of freedoms dreamt of that developed in the 1960s. Big business and government want to keep the majority poorly paid on low incomes. The next big change seems to be coming from the right wing. Donald Trump has been voted into the presidency of the United States. Britain has voted to leave Europe at a time of austerity under a right wing government. I wonder where things are going to go from here?




It is interesting to see who the sponsors of this exhibiton are; Levis, the company that made the trouser choice of the 60s. Sennheiser,  provide the sound systems for the exhibiton. It is worth wearing the headphones that are provided. Walking around the exhibition is a musical experience, a continuous soundtrack of music from the sixties with appropriate music tracks connected to each part of exhibition.The Kinks ,”Waterloo Sunset” for ,”Swinging London,” fashion and the counter culture. Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction,”recalling Vietnam. That one  sends a chill down your spine. The largest exhibition room, its floor spread out with Indian patterned cushions to sit on, is a surround sound and filmic experience of the Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals provided by Sennheiser. Sassoon, the creative hairdresser who started in the 1960’s who cut Twiggys hair  also recalls the fashion of Barbara Hulanicki and BIBA and Mary Quant.  Fenwick, the store company which started in the late 1880s and owns many of our High Street outles delivering the fashion of today also contributes. The Annenberg Foundation is a main sponsor too through its charitable trust and its belief in personal freedoms and the creation of outlets for the expression of creativity and the provision of free public facilities. It sponsors free public broadcasting and has promoted education, the arts and created places such as community beach houses, wetlands restoration projects and much more. Walter Annenberg who began the foundation was The American Ambassador to Britain under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.



Pete Townsend of The Who performing in 1968 at the first Isle of Wight festival.

And finally..................................ME AS I WAS THEN!!!!!! (God help us all!! Ha! Ha!)



References:
The New Poetry (Selected and introduced ) by A Alvarez (Penguin 1962)
 The Comprehensive School by Robin Pedley  (Pelican 1963)
You Say You Want A Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966- 1970  edited by Victoria Broakes and Geoffrey Marsh  ( (Victoria and Albert publishing 2016)
Bary McGuire ,”Eve of Destruction.”       https://youtu.be/ntLsElbW9Xo
The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset.”                  https://youtu.be/N_MqfF0WBsU