Saturday 14 June 2008

Breakfast talk

As I said in my last post, I've recently come back from my annual trip to Haworth for the Bronte Society AGM. In fact, it's exactly a year since I wrote my very first two blog posts, one of which talked about last year's AGM events. I'm afraid there weren't many more young people there this year - perhaps one or two - so I'll just keep hoping!

As always, I met up with old friends, and I made some new ones. One morning I got up for breakfast and met a man I hadn't seen before in the B&B breakfast room. He said "Are you a Bronte person?" (This is not a strange question to a society member in Haworth in the first full weekend in June). "Yes, I am.", I replied, "Are you a Bronte person?". He said he wasn't, but was doing some work on the gravestones at the Church - photographing, making notes, cross referencing in a database. It seemed like a good idea to me. I asked where he was sitting, so that I didn't steal his table, and he invited me to join him. I said I couldn't, because I was expecting a friend (she was staying in the same B&B) and I sat elsewhere. We continued to talk, but it was awkward with the table arrangements, so I went to sit with him until my friend arrived. When she did, she joined the conversation, and we talked about the merits of the Society (friends all over the world, coming to Haworth, shared interests, among other things), and he commented that everyone had been kind and helpful to him. I agreed, "Yes, most people in Haworth are very friendly". "I know", he said, "just today, a lady came to sit with me at breakfast".

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