Stepping Through the Veil

Hi y’all,

it has been a while, hasn’t it?

The reason being, I’ve been following my heart and the call of the wild a little and I’ve been travelling, and while I was, my days got so full of wondrous encounters and serendipity, exactly how I like my life to be, that I am still playing catch-up with putting it all into words. So now I am going to gradually take you along in retrospect.

To experience that witches are real, and so are faeries, and so are towns run by queers but more importantly, to my own great delight, rife with lesbians, you should come to Yorkshire and Lancashire. Please let me take you along to a journey which, as many other things in my life, started with books. But also with two of my dearest friends who have been a part of my life for a long time. And to a place that feels like home in a way that keeps tearing at me.

One cannot be a raging lezzer like me, into books, into books about witches, love the North of the UK (the part of it which voted remain, obviously), and not have heard about the phenomenon that is Hebden Bridge. It is nestled into Calder Valley, steeped in history, lies beneath the final resting site of Sylvia Plath and an infamous criminal’s of the 18th century. And I came to see it after reading Juno Dawson and asking my friends from Manchester if, indeed, the fable about this veritable Grail castle of lesbianism held a kernel of truth.

I can officially now announce with glee and wonderment, it does for me.

Welcome to the overture to my travelling report of the South Pennines.

Writing is, among other things, a tool of distancing oneself from the world. While I write, I am one step removed from my life, and that is a welcome state of respite still. To be honest, I was hopeful, when I began writing to you pretty much exactly a year ago, that I would proceed faster towards some form of resolution.

That said. One ought to perhaps gracefully take into account the demersal starting point. And this process of trying to attain reconciliation with life—while I am not above wishing I could force it—is making me venture forth, try new things, generally try.

I was relieved and grateful to come back to Manchester and discover my memories of this place remain joyful and untouched by whatever bollocks has gone down in my life since I’ve been here last. As always, I am magnetically drawn to my mate’s book shelf full of the most august, finely curated and carefully selected queer and lesbian works. Among which, a couple of years back, lo and behold, was Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson.

I think I asked my mate something along the lines of:

Does this place, that town she’s writing about, actually exist? Because it sounds like it does?

Oh, it’s just up north a little…

It’s not far away at all. Just behind a few hills, up that valley…isn’t this how fairy tales begin generally?

Imagine in tone a stroppy Northern, possibly sometimes even lairy lass (and I say this in awe), with a very dry and caustic humour (especially when dealing with faithless spouses), dishing out a violent tale of institutionalised witchcraft, set in the selfsame area where a local man ran a criminal organisation so fearsome to the monarchy his traitor’s grave is still a global attraction, where poets’ graves crest the hills, where floods and looming hillsides and ragingly howling moors and cozy pubs all intermingle with a history of coining, the industrial revolution, poverty, drugs, hippies, UFOs and queers. I had to put Dawson’s books about the Hebden Bridge witches down more than a couple of times because they are truly grim and upsetting. I have siblings and can I just say, Dawson is taking familial infighting to a whole new level. It was disturbingly ruthless! It made me vividly recall the worst I’ve been to my own siblings (no, I haven’t pulled a Ciara on any of them, just to put that out there.)

And then I remembered that voice, that tone, that dark resisting humour behind the bleakness, and like a mortal drawn to a fairy ring—fully knowing I’d be entrapped once I entered—I returned. The first part of the series was what ignited the spark of interest for that conglomerate of towns along the Calder in me. I am now at the end of the second part and reeling with all its revelations. It feels so much more poignant now that I have actually been to some of the places mentioned in the books. And how wonderful and insane is it to literally enter a story! I used to feel that way, living in London and watching BBC series with their inevitable shots of the town vista from Hampstead Heath, waving a debonaire hand and saying, why yes, I sat on that park bench only yesterday. I bloody missed this so much. Forget Berlin (sorry). Forget many other cities, and places. To me, to be Alice going down my very own personal rabbit hole, that. is. everything. To step into stories like through a wardrobe and into Narnia is beyond comparison. My Narnia happens to be the entirety of the British Isles, apparently. Possibly the Republic of Ireland too, once I manage to set foot on it. (After all, my favourite storied pirate of all times hailed from there. But I digress.)

Hebden Bridge features many of the famed aspects of its legend. The very warm and friendly welcome I got was affirmed by a queer woman I talked to at a party who smilingly informed me that she herself chooses to make trips from Halifax specifically to go out in Hebden. (Fair, it’s been a while since Anne Lister graced that hood.) You should try and catch a performance by local organisation’s Out in the Valley LGBT+ Social Group theatre group, if you are ever there, and the drum group Drum Machine, and the Calder Caterwaulers. Definitely stop by all the pubs, and the cafés; especially Squeeze Cafe, where there is a daily surprise tea, and I also spent a very enjoyable time in the coziness of Mooch Cafe Bar. But take your pick, really. I can especially recommend the winter time for this, with grand Christmas trees stately and gaily illuminating the interiors, and roaring fires in the pubs such as The Old Gate. As a veritable Christmas fiend, I got all my heart wished for: quiet seasonal music of all sorts, live Christmas performances in the streets by marching and drum bands, Three Swords Ale, excellent chips, and a chimney fire behind my back. But if you are like me and enjoy tearing across the winterly moors in high winds, madly cackling like Cathy (or maybe Emily) herself with the sheer insane joy of trodding where giantesses of wild literature once roamed, all the while whining ‘Heathcliff, it’s me’ into the whooshing winds, do try to remember that some of the cozy cafés close early and make time for downing a couple of teas to warm yourself up.

Visit every book store, load up on (queer) folklore and other queer lore in the local bookshop The Book Case.

Expect rain and water above and below.

Dare the unbelievably steep and slippery cobbled old road off Hangingroyd Lane up to Heptonstall and see how far you get without your broomstick. I say this as a person who grew up in some of the higher mountains on the European continent: I am in awe of that road! Be quite irresponsible and try to walk down the footpaths from Heptonstall at night, in rain, over muddy heather and look out west across the lights of the valley, while tawny owls are flirting with each other all around you with irreverent abandon. Do. Don’t fall, and then come and look me in the eye and tell me you did not feel the crackle of life, of magic, of some lingering scent of the Wild Hunt in the air. I was so pleased to have the night for myself, to bask in this immense joy, and imagine Theo in Dawson’s books wandering over to Hardcastle Crags.

Never roam anywhere without a book, and I mean one of paper, about the locale in hand or your bag, ready to be read, take Wuthering Heights or The Gallows Pole if you prefer, but I chose to locally purchase a copy of The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson. I actually dripped some blanket bog-dyed water stains on it by accident. Seems fitting now! As I walked over eight miles the next day in a quite lusty storm up over the hills to Haworth and there promptly ended up in a reading by another famed queer author complete by effing chance, completed my round trip to Hebden Bridge after a couple of days and a positively haunting visit at, of course, yon jolly (not) Chez Brontë, and because I had some more adventures, I confess right now I did not manage to begin to read it until I had already left Hebden Bridge for Manchester on December 14th. And of course I am rounding off my research with Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley (yikes) and Riot Women.

But I would not have visited Sylvia Plath’s grave if I had not heard of the whole intensely wonderful place from Juno Dawson, first. This probably says a lot about my preferences and priorities in life and literature. So thank you, from the bottom of my sore gay heart. I fell head over hiking booted heel in love with the Calder Valley and environs. With what it is, with the magic it inspires, and with the completely otherworldly notions this liminality between the factual and the fantastical is giving me.

To the people who are sticking with me and so kindly follow this self-serving blog of mine, I am aware I am now twofold in your debt: The rest of Tomes & Teas by Rebecca Thorne will be intensely explored, and I will of course tell you in detail about the gruesome, violent, and at times unexpectedly funny delights Dawson’s witches gift us. Please bear with me until I’ve shuddered may way through the third book in the trilogy because I somehow need to before I can get my ducks in a row! I will soon, now that I am mostly back from gallivanting, for now at least. But remember that I am still in love with Taylor (see my blog post from June), so I have decided to follow my heart out into the world more often again. Hence, there will be more travel writing here, too.

(Also, did you know that the Brontë museum proudly displays a handkerchief flecked with actual blood by poor TB’d Anne?? It’s exhibit D19, if you’re wondering. And with this thought, I am leaving you for now.)

As always, Mia