Everywhere is now

 

 

In 2018, I was commissioned to write a Comic about war. The editor ended up being replaced and my piece didn't see the light of day, so I'm publishing it here because it seems pertinent to the current period. It was after all written in response to Trump. I had been in America for the first weeks of Trump's inauguration in 2017, researching my Mary Taylor biography, and saw first hand the women's marches protesting against his presidency and the clap-back of MAGA advertisements on TV. 

 

Re petition

I am part of a group trying to save Red House, the home of feminist writer and businesswoman Mary Taylor who, besides being extraordinarily important in her own right, was Charlotte Brontë’s best friend. Caroline Goodwill is leading the charge for the Brontë Red House Group and the following is her call for help:

The Red House Petiton was launched on Change.org at the end of July. By the end of August we had 3,000 signatures but let it run to 3,700 to allow for unacceptable signatures. 3,000 is the number required to go to Full Council meeting at Kirklees local authority. Unfortunately, when we submitted the signatures, we were told that we had only achieved 2,730 acceptable signatures. This was because almost 1,000 signatures were from abroad. We thought signatures from abroad strengthened our case that Red House is of national and international importance but as far as KC are concerned they were not acceptable.

We are now attempting to gain 4,200 signatures as quickly as possible so we can re-submit the petition. The petition is now ring-fenced to disallow non UK signatures. Incidentally, Change.org sometimes ask for a donation - we are not asking - it is not for us - but for Change.org and is entirely optional.  If any of you have links to local Facebook sites that we are not already using, perhaps you could let me know and I will put the petition on that site. This seems the quickest and most efficient way to obtain signatures. 

https://www.change.org/p/the-leader-of-kirklees-council-save-red-house-yorks-inspiration-for-shirley-by-charlotte-bronte

Please do not sign again if you have already signed as both signatures will be disqualified.

Once we have the required number of signatures, we will re-submit to Kirklees Council and hope to gain a date for presenting to the full council.  It should be around mid-October.  We are under time pressure because a number of things happen in November which will make Red House much more vulnerable.  

Once the petition is safely presented and we have a date for the meeting with full council, we must mount a strong national and international campaign to save the site and prevent building on the grounds.  Many emails and letters will need to be produced and if there is anyone in the group who would like to assist with this task, please leave your email in the comments - I won't publish them - and I'll put you in touch with Caroline, the secretary of our group.

Any ideas or names of people who may be able to help with funding, information, publicity etc - please let us have that information. 

Pencil art

Back in April 2017, I was lucky enough to be conducting research for my Mary Taylor graphic biography at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library while artist Clare Twomey invited visitors to recreate a long lost manuscript of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. I was thrilled to be able to add a line and was rewarded with this beautiful inscribed pencil. I just got it framed. Many thanks to @studioclaretwomey.

Haworth while

 

Red 'ouse

With the help of funding from a Creative New Zealand Arts Grant, I was able to travel to the UK from early April to the beginning of this month to research Mary Taylor. 

Mary Taylor was for about fifteen years a shopkeeper in Wellington in the 1840s and 50s, and much more, but she is best known as Charlotte Bronte's best friend. 

I had planned to travel to her ancestral home, Red House, in West Yorkshire.

 This is not Red House.

This is Oakwell Hall.

Kirklees Council chose to save Oakwell Hall instead of Red House.

Thank you for showing an interest in Red House. You may not be aware that at the last General Election the country chose to elect a government that made no secret of their commitment to austerity and their desire particularly to “shrink” local government. 

They have also shown and demonstrated their wish to move resources from authorities in the North of England and to protect authorities in the south. As a consequence we have seen a cut in government funding of £180m . This is at a time when demand for social care, that already makes up 60% of spending, is rising significantly.

Given the choice between protecting a child from abuse, supporting an aged person to stay at home, helping a person with disabilities to lead a normal life or subsidising visitors to a House once occupied by a significant historical figure, there was only one choice we could make.

We didn’t want to make the cuts. But we have no choice

David Sheard

Leader Kirklees Council

"Do you know anything about Oakwell Hall?"
"Isn't it the ancestral party pad of some privileged white men?"
Ha. ha ha h...
 
I asked, would have closed Red House if Mary Taylor had been a man? I imagined my words in a bubble, written in Comic sans.

 This is Red House.

 

 

In "1565 Henry Batt purchased the manors of Oakwell, Gomersal, Heckmondwike and Heaton. The Oakwell property was described as, 'Okewell Hall with the appurtances in Okewell, Gomersall, Birstall and Heckmondwike, now in the occupation of James Nettilton, Christopher Nettilton, Robert Popelay and William Taylor...'
     We cannot be certain that this William was one of the Red House Taylors, but the family tree does show a William Taylor of Gomersal who died in January 1588." (Ferrett, 1987)

Although, I was lucky enough to gain access to Red House, it was no longer running as a museum and had been stripped of its period furnishings and Taylor family art.

                                                                                

 

The Bronte Society now have the stained glass windows depicting Milton and Shakespeare. Red House is to be sold on the open market.

Barnsley poet Ian MacMillan once demonstrated that the difference between a Yorkshire accent and a Derbyshire one hinged upon the phrase "You can come in my house". Tykes say 'ouse whereas Derbyshire folk pronounce arse. It's a bit like difference between selling an 'istorical 'ouse to save an 'istorical arse.