Jane Austen's House Museum

Sense & Sensibility Scenes

2011-04-27T12:02:00.007+01:00

On Easter Monday the sun was blazing down on Jane Austen’s House Museum, which was perfect weather for our first ever outdoor performances. Ruffled Umbrella are a small theatre company who “create theatre that captivates and surrounds an audience”. They performed two scenes from Sense and Sensibility in the garden. The first, adapted from Chapter 2, in which John Dashwood and his wife Fanny discuss whether to give his sisters any financial support after the death of their father. And the second is the heartfelt scene between Elinor Dashwood and Willoughby in Chapter 44 where he desperately tries to justify his behavior towards Marianne.
The audience gently gathered on the grass as the actors began. Dressed in elegant replica costumes the actors immediately took the garden back to Regency England as Elinor Dashwood paced across the lawn in a long swishing skirt. The performances added a fresh and lively dimension to the atmosphere at the house and really brought it to life. It was wonderful to see these intimate dialogues performed so close to the audience and made us feel as though we’d stumbled across a real conversation.

Quote from Chapter 44
"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby; very blamable," said Elinor; while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; "you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you.”

For more information on future productions and performances by Ruffled Umbrella visit www.ruffledumbrella.co.uk

Swallows have returned

2011-04-15T11:38:00.004+01:00

The swallows are back! The male is busy feathering the nest for his mate. He is darting in and out of the rafters under the alcove. We've been deliberating as to whether this generation of swallows are descendants of Austen swallows. I looked up some information on Wikipedia -
"Migratory species often return to the same breeding area each year, and may select the same nest site if they were previously successful in that location. First-year breeders generally select a nesting site close to where they were born and raised."

Chawton House Library have also recently had their swallows return to the nest. So maybe it is still the case that siblings reside in both homes in Chawton, just like Edward and Jane.

The Return of the Swallows

Each Spring I fear the swallows will not come
and the rafter nest will remain empty
of new life. Flying away last Autumn,
heading southwards to Africa, first he,
then she, winged wildly about my head -
a valediction before facing unknown
skies. Are they tied by invisible thread,
as am I, to this point, this house, this home?

For generations this place has held call
over travellers, swallows and searchers
of calm. Over those seeking out one small
corner, one spot in the world that nurtures.
Each Spring I celebrate when I am wrong -
this is where the swallows, and I, belong.

By Madelaine Smith (our multi talented marketing manager)

Pilgrimage

2011-04-08T10:03:00.002+01:00

Visiting the place where Jane Austen actually sat and wrote her incredible novels is a dream come true for many of our visitors. Often they have read Austen and dreamed of Darcy since they were young and have been waiting for this moment for many years. A unique connection is made when you step inside her house and look out of her bedroom window. You glimpse how she might have lived and worked, and can begin to understand the women behind the novels.

People travel across the globe just to spend a few hours in her home. It has a magnetic pull on anyone who has once imagined themselves as Lizzie Bennet or Marianne Dashwood. Being inside the house lets you share moments with Jane Austen you can literally walk in her footsteps and experience what she may have felt.

Comments flood the visitor book with praise and thanks, and reveals what an emotional experience it is to many people.

"I am so glad I have finally managed to visit this wonderful place after three years of waiting"

"Wow it's so hard not to cry!"

" A wonderful and emotional experience to walk in the steps of Jane Austen for a short time!"

"a dream come true"

"lovely living tribute to someone I wish to get to know better"

It seems that for many people being in her home is part of an ongoing relationship that they develop with her as not only an author of their favourite books but also as a woman. Recently Isabel and I have found a few gifts and offerings to Jane and the house. I found a carefully made fan of hearts hung on a door handle in The Austen Family room. Each heart has a name of a character from Sense and Sensibility and they rotate to align with different people.

Isabel found this letter to Jane yesterday in the bedroom...

Who knows whether Jane receives these letters and offerings, but the staff at the museum love them! And it reminds us how lucky we are to work metres away from where the magic happened.

"Always Acting A Part" Austen Actors' Panel

2011-03-25T14:42:00.005Z

“Always Acting A Part”

A shameless promotion of an extra special event we're having to kick off the celebrations of our year of Sense and Sensibility. Last year we held a student conference at the British Library and both Blake and Hattie spoke in a informal and fascinating Q&A with the audience. For me it was the highlight of the conference! We're so excited that they've agreed to come to Chawton and know that it will be a lovely and very special evening. More information below...

Austen Actors Pannel Saturday 9th April 7:00pm
Join us for a special evening to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of Sense and Sensibility. A unique chance to meet the actors Blake Ritson (Edmund Bertram in ITV’s Mansfield Park, Mr Elton in the 2010 series of Emma) and Hattie Morahan (Elinor in Sense & Sensibility).

Blake and Hattie will talk about their experiences of acting in Jane Austen television adaptations and will take questions from the audience.
Panel discussion will take place in Chawton Village Hall and commences at 8.00pm. Pre-performance gathering in the Learning Centre at the Museum from 7.00pm

Tickets: £17.50, Concessions £15.00 (to include pre-performance glass of wine). Under 16s £10.00
Places are limited so please book 01420 83262

Lumb Bank

2011-03-07T16:26:00.006Z

A few weeks ago Madelaine (our marketing manager) and I (education officer) spent a week at Lumb Bank in Hebden Bridge on an Arvon Foundation creative writing week.

The aim of the week was to develop our creative writing techniques and learn new writing exercises which we could use as part of our education programme. We were lucky enough to be funded by the Museums Libraries and Archives organisation as part of our collaboration with the British Library. Other literary houses and collections were represented including the Bronte Parsonage, Dickens House, Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage, John Rylands Library and the British Library.

Ted Hughes owned the house for a while and his poem Wind was written about the house and perfectly depicts its remote and beautiful location. Here is an extract...

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Ted Hughes

It was a fantastic week with no T.V. radio, internet connection or mobile phone reception which made a wonderful change from my usual noise filled lifestyle. In the mornings we wrote on a huge wooden table which could sit 18 people. We had two 1hr 30mins workshops led by our course tutors (Anne Sansom and Steve Voake). The afternoons were free for people to do as they wished and in the evenings we shared a meal around the giant table again.

Mid week we had a poetry reading from Patience Agbabi who had recently complete a residency at Chatham Dockyard. She spoke about her work and read a coronet of 7 sonnets which she’d written in response to her residency. They were beautifully written and she is an extremely skilled writer.
The week was brilliant and I thoroughly recommend going on a course if you need a boost in your writing or just some time to yourself. It’s such a beautiful part of the world, I can understand why Ted wanted to live there.

Hopefully there will be a second instalment to this as Madelaine will upload her account of our week and some of our writing.

A Creative Evening

2011-02-25T14:26:00.004Z

Last week saw the second of our teacher CPD evenings – run with support from NAWE (National Association for Writers in Education) the MLA and the British Library.
The events have included talks, object handling and have focused on using creative writing to engage with museum collections.
Our recent writer in residence, Rebecca Smith, came prepared with many creative writing exercises for the teachers to try out as they explored the house. The theme of the night was “Decisions and Destiny in Austen and Hardy” so all the exercises linked the objects to this idea.

Pippa Brindly from Dorset County Museum (who display Hardy’s study and have the majority o his collection) came laden with objects to examine, including a man-trap and a horn lantern. She also had lots of photos of Dorset life in the early 1900s which depicted some great characters very suitable for inspiring stories.

Louise (curator at Jane Austen’s) showed some items from the collection that are not usually on display. The teachers were able to look at and handle these special objects: a white silk shawl that Jane embroidered, lovely miniatures and an amazing Grand Tour sketchbook which contains beautifully detailed drawings and paintings.
The evening received great feedback with people commenting on how evocative it is to wonder around the house in the evening. A few of the teachers sent me some of their writing so I’ve copied it in below.

Cassandra: memory of a sister

We found it there among her things,
a muddle of mourning rings and brooches
of a life where death was never far away.
A fold of yellowing paper which we almost cast out
before by chance we read the faint familiar hand:
“My father’s hair.
A fine white spray scattered from my fingers,
Releasing from this latest death
a shared beginning.

David Cave from Churchers College wrote this after seeing the lock of Mr Austen’s hair in the Austen Family Room.

The three poems below were done by Susan Greenhalgh from Alton College, and here is what she says about them.
The first poem, Whose Feet? Whose Fate? is in response to the idea given by Rebecca about the three Austen women: Mrs Austen's concerns about her future as a relatively penniless widow; Cassandra's preoccupations with her dead fiancé; and, finally, Jane's frustrations at not being able to dedicate her days to writing. Rebecca's idea of 'under the floorboards' has been translated to the floorboards themselves.

The second, very short piece, Scrap, is inspired by the original scrap of wallpaper and is deliberately rather imagist/haiku-esque in style!

Finally, I wrote the poem Looking Back about the mirror in Jane's room in my little book at the last CPD event.

Whose Feet? Whose Fate?
No money, no status
Here with my daughters
Awaiting a decision
To comfort my last years
I wait…

My loss is heavy; my heart is sore.
What pain and fear did he suffer
In that far-off land?
I was not there; he does not know
The wide and frightful space
Of my grief.

The house is full of noise;
Domestic chores demand too much of me.
I long to create and spill
The thoughts, active in my mind,
Into words!

The wooden treads
Bear witness.
They yearn and grieve and fuss.
Two hundred years of passing feet
Still share their fate with us.

Scrap

Torn, faded relic
Vestige of a simple life
Backdrop to genius

Looking Back

Now mottled with time and use
A frame with tilt, and loose
But
Filling the space with sense
Of what and who were once here.
Out of sight, the private place
Where two sisters shared
Their love, their secrets and their pain.
Here another face
Contemplates the open way:
Different lives on full display.

First Flowers in Jane's Garden

2011-02-04T11:31:00.003Z

Winter Snaps

2011-01-24T11:23:00.002Z

Here are some photos from Chawton taken last Friday.

Writers Book Installment #2

2011-01-17T14:41:00.009Z

The book "A Chawton Sampler" is currently on display at the museum.

A poem by Tony Hillier - emailed to the museum after he'd visited last summer.

Written by Jackie Gregory - who cleans and cares for Jane Austen's House Museum

Henrietta Street - Marion Oswald
Extract from a Novel

Country Tracks

2011-01-10T10:30:00.004Z

Our House Manager Ann Channon was interviewed on Country Tracks at the weekend. It was a lovely portrayal of the house - we hope you enjoy it too!

Country Tracks link - click here

Happy Birthday

2010-12-16T08:45:00.003Z

It is Jane's 235th Birthday today!

The museum is celebrating with free entry and mince pies for visitors (so if you're nearby please join us.)

At Home with the Georgians

2010-12-10T12:59:00.006Z

BBC 2 Programme "At Home with the Georgians"
Some filming of the museum in the first episode - link below.

click here

"A Chawton Sampler"

2010-12-06T11:17:00.005Z

Part of the aim of the writer in residence project was to produce a collection of writing from the house cteated during the residency. Members of the writing group selected short works to submit around the loose themes of homes, family and anything Austen related. There was a fantastic range of poems and prose all with very different takes on the topics. Some of the attendees of Rebecca Smith's writing workshops also gave some of their work to be included in the book.

The original idea was to reproduce the writing in a small booklet of a few hundred copies, but after some discussion we plumped for a one off book with illustrations that could be kept in the museum collection. At the moment there seems to be an interest in Artists books. During "Under the Influence" the contemporary craft exhibition we had over the summer, there were a couple of lovely books produced by the artists to accompany their work. Visitors loved looking at the books and they were constantly being picked up and thumbed through.

The book was made using lots of different papers some handmade, with different textures and natural shades. Images were taken from the texts and cut out of paper then sewn together. It explores the idea of words being like little stitches that are strung together to make a complete object. This concept came from looking at the fabric diamonds in the patchwork quilt that the Austen ladies laboriously stitched together. I can imagine them discussing the current family gossip and that day’s events whilst sewing tiny stitches, the words and stories becoming part of the quilt.

Above is an image of the front cover of the book. I'll be uploading it in sections over the following month.

Winter's Approach

2010-11-17T12:25:00.004Z

On my drive up to Chawton from Titchfield this morning I noticed how the trees are beginning to take on their wintery look. The beautiful bursts of colour from autumn leaves have faded and the countryside seems to be settling down under the cold rain. So in order to combat the gloomy feeling of the early evenings the museum is planning an twlight opening of the house.

An atmospheric event with live music, natural festive decorations plucked from the garden and elegantly arranged by our talented House Manager, mulled wine, mince pies and for those that are wondering which perfect gift to buy an Austen fan, an opportunity for some Christmas shopping.

7th December 6pm - 9pm Twlight OpeningTickets £10 - Concessions £9 includes drinks and nibbles. No booking needed.

Education, education education....

2010-10-04T14:40:00.004+01:00

Earlier this summer Jane Austen's House Museum ran a student conference at the British Library. It was a fantastic day with 100 students attending, talks from leading Austen academics and hands on workshops (including Regency dancing!)
Here is a short clip of the day.

FREE CPD Events for English Teachers - 19th October 5:30pm - 8pm
Again in partnership with the British Library, we are running 2 continued professional development evenings. The first will examine the links between the Brontes and Austen. A talk exploring the "Mad Men"in Austen and Bronte novels, creative writing with Rebecca Smith and an opportunity to enjoy the museum without your students.

Booking is essential as places are limited - please call 01420 83262.

Rain, rain, rain

2010-08-27T10:56:00.004+01:00

"It is raining furiously - & tho' only a storm, I shall probably send my letter to Alton instead of going myself" Tuesday 9th February 1813, from Jane at Chawton to Cassandra.

"It began to rain, not much, but enough to make shelter desirable for women," Persuasion, Vol II, Chapter VII

Luckily at the museum we also don't have to walk to Alton to post our letters!

Creative Response

2010-08-16T11:24:00.007+01:00

We all know that Jane Austen found Chawton an extremely inspiring place, writing and rewriting all her major works here. Currently on display is an exhibition of art and craftwork by students at Farnham UCA who have created contemporary art in response to the musuem and its collection. Many of the artists commented on how engaging they found working in the house. They loved researching her life then making connections to the house and its contents and identifying with the objects that belonged to Jane.

On the 14th July a group from Creative Response visited the museum. They are an arts organistation who work with vulnerable people to build confidence and self-esteem, enabling participants to overcome their fears and anxieties. They use both visual and performance related arts as a catalyst in a therapeutic environment. Many visitors often comment on the feeling of relaxation and peacefulness they experience when in the house. It is wonderful to be privileged enough to work somewhere which has this effect on people. I hope it will continue to inspire and soothe for many more years to come.

Below is some artwork by Liz Titcomb, a participant of Creative Response. She was inspired by the garden and took some lovely photos. These are the first of her paintings.

SUMMERTIME

2010-08-04T11:23:00.003+01:00

Every summer holidays we run a creative competition for under 16's. This year the idea is to complete the begining of a comic strip story. Jane Austen wakes up early then creeps into the kitchen trying to satisfy a hungry stomach and opens the kitchen closet and then you decide "what happens next..." There have been some fantastically imaginative responses some involving cats, aliens and magical worlds (although not all at once)
We are also running some weekend object handling sessions. These are for children aged 2 to 102 to touch and explore genuine antique objects. Try on some kid leather gloves, compare a penny from 2010 with one from 200 years ago, find out how people carried their money and discover who would wear a sparkly shoe buckle.

Handling sessions - Sat 7th August & Sun 8th August & Sat 21st August - drop in to these informal and friendly activities.

Family Day 18th July

2010-07-12T14:45:00.005+01:00

This sunday (18th July) is the museum's annual family day. It is a fun packed day with many activities including singing and dancing with the Madding Crowd who dress in Regancy costume and have a limitless knowledge of period music. It really brings the house alive and creates such a fantastic atmosphere.

There will be lots of activities to occupy children (and adults!) including onion skin dyeing, lavender water making, peg doll making and the launch of our brand new handling sessions. These sessions allow people to pick up and touch real 200 year old objects from the museum's handling collection. An experienced guide will help you explore what these objects tell us about the time of Jane Austen.

In the evening there will be a harpischord concert, which is a very unique and atmosphereic event performed by Dr Anthony Noble. Tickets are still available adults - £10 Concessions - £7.50 Please call 01420 83262. Dr Noble is a harpsichordist and musicologist specialising in keyboard music of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. François Couperin, one of the composers whose music will be performed, said that his pieces ‘are portraits of a kind, which under my fingers have been found to be tolerable likenesses’.

Schools Writing Competition

2010-06-23T15:24:00.003+01:00

Students at secondary school in Hampshire and neighbouring counties were invited to write a 200-300 word novel opening. The standard was very high and deciding on only 3 winners was extremely difficult. The other judges included the education officers at the museum and Professor Kathryn Sutherland, one of the museum's patrons.

Professor Sutherland said, "It is not an easy thing to write an opening for a work that has no further existence on paper but nonetheless resonates and suggests the possibility of growth in the reader’s imagination. The best entries for this new ‘Jane Austen writing competition’ rose to the challenge by combining strong invention, economy of detail, and suspense – the sense of something about to happen."

The winning entrants were invited to celebrate their success by reading their opening and having tea and cake in the sunny garden at the museum. Here are a few photos of the awards afternoon for the Schools Writing Competition.

Other Things I Haven't Written About Yet

2010-06-11T23:27:00.003+01:00

Some things at the Museum still astonish me. I am constantly amazed by how few paid staff there are, and by how few of these are full-time. I still can’t believe that Louise (Education and Collections) isn’t full-time. She does so much and constantly comes up with new ideas and projects and most importantly, pulls them off. And Madelaine (Marketing and Publicity) is only paid for about one day each week. This is astonishing too. Here is a museum of international significance with a one day/week marketing person! The visitors see this gorgeous, gorgeous place, and meanwhile there is a tiny team of people working flat out behind the scenes.
When you come to the Museum, have a look at the steps that go up to the office next to the Bakehouse. These are quite scary steps to use. They are ancient and wooden with some chicken-wire to make them less treacherous. I always worry that I’m going to be the one to break them, but once up them, it’s easy to imagine the office as it was - a place for storing grain or apples.
The swallows in the barn (that bit of barn next to the shop) have fledged. They are well ahead of the swallows on Springwatch where fledged now seems to mean “able to fly”. I think that it used to be the term for having acquired feathers. I do have a slight Springwatch fixation. My son, Eddie, and I watch in horror and fascination. Oh, why won’t they ever let poor Simon King into the studio, or to within a few hundred miles of the other presenters? Why are creatures so beastly?
I have met Chris Packham’s mother - a fabulous, dynamic person who invited me to open her church fete - one of the nicest and most peculiar things that has ever happened to me. I felt as though I had fallen into a Barbara Pym novel - just about my idea of heaven. Chris Packham’s sister, Jenny, designs gorgeous and very glamorous dresses - she was at the fete too. I have yet to meet Chris Packham, even though he once spent a day standing outside our house with binoculars - an incident that made it into my first novel. He was with a flock of twitchers photographing some waxwings that had alighted on the rowan trees at the top of our road. Ah ha, the watcher watched.
In the unlikely event that anybody wonders why I have written nothing for over a month and now have written three things in one day, it's because my proper job is being a teaching fellow at Southampton University. I have just emerged from about two months of non-stop marking - about half a million words of students' writing since Easter. Now I'm catching my breath before tackling MA assignments and finishing that novel, so really this one should be called "Other Things I Haven't Written Yet." And that novel is what I should be writing.

The Prize-Giving

2010-06-11T23:18:00.001+01:00

Last Wednesday we had the prize-giving for the writing competition. It was a gorgeous day and almost all of the winners came to collect their prizes and eat cake with their parents and friends. It was lovely meeting them and hearing them read their work out loud. It was a real highlight of my time here. The winning entries are up on the website now in the “Schools” section - have a look. The only bad thing about it was seeing myself in some of the photos afterwards. There’s nothing like standing next to a beautiful sixth-former to confirm one’s status as a big old hen.
I was so impressed by some of the writing, and when I think back to the complete garbage I was writing when I was their age… Even if they don’t go on to write the novels they’ve opened (and not many people finish the first novels - yes plural - that they start) I think that there is some real talent here.

Capturing The Kitchen

2010-06-11T23:14:00.001+01:00

“ I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. ”

and I’m sitting writing this on the bench in the “historic kitchen”. I guess people at the Museum call it the historic kitchen because there is another secret, less historic kitchen backstage - a kitchen where paperbacks are swapped and the biscuit tin is never empty Visitors often say that the (historic) kitchen is one of their favourite places. For most of the residency it has been so cold that sitting in here for more than a few moments has been impossible; not so today.
It’s raining and the door is open and the birds are singing outside so perhaps the rain is going to stop, or perhaps they are just always singing here. There are roses around the door.
Walking into Chawton today, I felt so sad. I can’t bear the thought that all this is going to carry on without me. When my residency is over, I shall just have to haunt the Museum. Well actually my residency is kind of over, but I’m still hanging about with some things to finish, I’ll be there for the writing group for a while at least, am watching in awe as Catherine fashions the writing we’ve collected into a beautiful artist’s book, and (listen for strains of the theme from Titanic) my blog will go on! We are planning more writing workshops for the autumn and winter too.
Before I take my last X64 bus back to Winchester, there are a few things that I want to say…

2010-04-26T15:43:00.002+01:00

Jane Fairfax's bonnet.

Mr Knightly's hat.

Tiny dress worn by Laura Pyper as Jane Fairfax.

Blue hat worn by Jane Fairfax.

More Emma Costumes

2010-04-26T15:31:00.003+01:00

Michael Gambon's fabulous costume as Mr Woodhouse.

Michael Gambon's huge shoes!

Romola Garai as Emma wore this beautiful dress during the ball scene.

Mr Knightly (Jonny Lee Miller) and Emma - the designers describe his blue jacket as Atlantic blue.

Emma's pinafore like day dress.

Country Girls

2010-04-25T23:15:00.002+01:00

How does that Eagles song go? “City girls just seem to find out early, how to open doors with just a smile…”
Having lived in Southampton for more than 20 years, I suppose that I am kind of a city girl. Or do city girls only live in London or New York?
But I still don’t see myself as a city girl, or even a city dweller. I never wear high heels and one of the high points of my week is the feeling of satisfaction I have when I've just cleaned out the hens; but then Highfield in Southampton is more leafy campus and (mostly) pleasant residential area than gritty inner city or happening place.
One of my former neighbours (a Romany who had gone into brick) once told me that I was a country girl - I know she meant it and I took it as praise indeed. When I'm at Chawton I never find myself longing for the city. Almost every house I glimpse on the way here should be mine. I really would like a donkey, or even a donkey sanctuary. Spring is busting out all over. The fields have now turned from grey to green, and where they are ploughed they are guarded by sinister, white sack-on-stick figures, that in the dusk could be either faceless ghosts or Klu Klux Klan members; but still I love it. I like being in a place where I get baa-d at when I get off the bus.
I don’t think Jane Austen wrote that much about animals. I’m sure that her attitude to them wasn’t sentimental – a perusal of Martha Lloyd’s cookbook tells us some of the many ways she enjoyed them. She knew about raising chickens and turkeys and keeping bees. The family had a flock of sheep when they were at Steventon. There were definitely dogs in her life – Cassandra and Martha Lloyd both had them – I’m not sure about Jane. Do please tell me if you know. But the creatures I keep wondering about here are cats. There must have been cats at Chawton – there is a granary and a bakehouse! I can really imagine cats reclining on the gorgeous, deep windowsills, and hiding in the hedgerows. Did Jane Austen have a cat? What was it called? Cats are standard kit for writers. Who else will sit on one’s papers, or the keyboard, or keep trying to knock the pen from one’s hand? Who else will provide distraction by cornering a frog just outside the dining room window? How could Jane have got any work done without a cat to help her?

Exciting Things At The Museum

2010-04-14T18:27:00.004+01:00

People write some lovely things in the visitors’ book, but here is a rather special entry:

“3 / 4 / 10 - Amazing and my boyfriend has just asked me to marry him!”

Raise your glasses for the happy couple from Chichester!

It has been all excitement at the Museum. On Monday there was a large party of French students, nothing unusual here, but hot on their heels were all the Mayors of Hampshire on a civic day out hosted by the Mayor of Basingstoke (very friendly and thinking of writing a book about his year in office). I do apologize if that is not how he should be described - His Worship The Mayor of Basingstoke? I await correction. They were all wearing their chains of office. I learned that Portsmouth has a Lord Mayor, whereas Southampton, for some reason, has only a Mayor. Perhaps it is to do with football leagues. They were clearly having a grand day out and left us all wondering what the collective noun for mayors is. A company? A worship? A regalia? I’ve yet to find a definitive answer.
We've put up a picture of one of the costume's - Emma's yellow dress. I felt rather annoyed that there were some of Jane Fairfax's thing's in Jane's bedroom - I've always rather hated Jane Fairfax - but I've been told that Jane Fairfax may have been a self-portrait. Isabel has kindly offered to take some more photos (she is much, much better at this than me) so more will follow.
Wednesday 21st April at 4.45pm is our next writing group meeting. We are currently putting together a collection of new writing inspired by the house. If you have visited the Museum in the last six months and have written something inspired by it - poetry or prose - do get in touch. We shall probably make one beautiful book to keep in the Reading Room and publish the contributions online.

I’m very aware that my time as Writer in Residence is drawing to a close and I feel as though I haven’t done nearly enough writing. I am very good at being distracted and chatting to people instead of working, and I find the day to day goings on here so absorbing. I’m meant to finish my so-called novel by August so I’d better get a move on.

Two Swallows and Michael Gambon’s Boots

2010-04-01T14:18:00.001+01:00

Good news – Mrs Swallow has arrived safely! They have been seen together around the nest and despite the cold weather, Ann noticed a cloud of midges in the courtyard, so they should be finding something to eat.
The costumes are going up around the Museum and we will put some photos of them up here, but do try to come and see them and come to the talk on May 7th. They came with a special courier, but you might prefer to imagine them arriving by carriage or dancing along the Hampshire lanes, trying to avoid the puddles and not get mud on their petticoats. When I left Chawton yesterday, Louise, Catherine and Isabel were busy with mannequins and pins.

One Swallow

2010-03-24T15:49:00.004Z

It’s all excitement at the Museum today. The first swallow has arrived! Yes, on March 24th, here he is. Ann, the House Manager always records the first swallow in the Visitors’ Book. 24th March seems amazingly early, particularly given the winter we have had, but perhaps he knows something we don’t. Ann tells me that the male often arrives first to inspect the nest. The female should be here in a few days. We will all have our fingers crossed for her safe passage. The nest is in the little room (former barn, of course) next to the shop, and Ann has stuck fluorescent post-it notes across the glass door to guard against crashes. There is a sort of sail suspended horizontally from the ceiling in there to protect the visitors heads…
When I started here I thought that I would make sure that I stayed until the swallows returned. (There are a fixed number of days for the residency - I have had to be careful not to spend them too quickly.) I’m not done yet! I hope it won’t be like Mary Poppins and the wind changing.
Next exciting event of the day - the costumes from Emma have arrived! They’ll be on display next month.
Third exciting event of the day - the art students have been making their presentations on the work they’d like to exhibit. (See the other blog - the one that is more beautiful than mine.) We have been shown some really gorgeous and clever things - responses to the Museum and to Jane Austen and her work. Yet again I find myself wishing that I was a visual artist rather than a writer - more fun to experiment with paint, ceramics, metal and glass than with amplification and hyperbole. But what am I complaining about? I can go and sit in the garden with a notebook and pretend to be writing whilst I keep watch for Mrs. Swallow.

Coming Back To Life

2010-03-22T14:54:00.002Z

Well spring has sprung. The garden is really coming back to life. Each time that I come - even if just a couple of days have elapsed - there is something new out. The first snowdrops are almost finished and crocuses are still here with the cyclamen and the grape hyacinths, and the daffodils are on the march. Soon the outside wall will be under siege.
I’m quite pleased that spring is a bit later this year. Although there were still reports of primroses in autumn, I’m pleased that the natural order has, to some extent, been restored, although I read an article this weekend that said that the hard winter had been bad news for kingfishers...
I ran a workshop here on Saturday - Families In Fiction - which is just about my favourite subject. My starting point was Jane’s advice to her niece Anna:
“You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them into exactly such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on…”
So many novels that I really love are about families - or maybe all novels are about families or the lack of them. Discuss.
The next book for the Museum Reading Group is Mary Stanley’s The Umbrella Tree. So far so good. And the Writing Group is meeting this week on Wednesday. The optional homework theme is The One That Got Away. I had been planning on writing a short story for that, but so far it has eluded me...
My youngest son, Eddie told me that I hadn’t written my blog for four weeks - four weeks! I had thought it was only one! Meanwhile I have been visiting schools for our young writers’ competition. I’ve been to Treloars School in Alton twice now and have been so impressed by the students and their writing.
Back at the Museum we are faced with the horrible task of drawing up the competition shortlist. Horrible, because there are so many really good entries and because so many of them seem to have arrived stamped with hope and dreams. We’ll be publishing the winning entries on the website and announcing the winners in May. Watch this space.

Sir Terry and The Speed Daters

2010-02-15T17:13:00.007Z

There have been bonfires and much sweeping, and the garden at Chawton looks like a blank canvas - but of course it isn’t. There are snowdrops and aconites and all manner of sweet things about to break through. It is that lovely time of year when bad gardeners like me think “Maybe this time…” and the whole year is still a blank canvas, yet to be spoiled by dandelions and bindweed.
Actually my year has had its share of dandelions and bindweed already. My son Eddie is recovering from appendicitis and that has all been quite a business. He is incredibly brave - too stoic really - and told me yesterday that actually it hadn’t hurt that much. Thank goodness for morphine and kind nurses. The ward he was in had the most fabulous view across Southampton. We could see for miles beyond the docks, the blue block of Ikea and the sparkling water to the New York skyline of Fawley, and beyond that to the New Forest and the Isle of Wight. When Eddie was still too ill to sit up, at least he could lie on his bed and watch the clouds. We kept expecting to see peregrine falcons - it can only be matter of time before they are swooping from the heights of Millbrook and Shirley Towers - or perhaps pterodactyls. Jurassic Park III is one of Eddie's favourite movies and we were able to watch it on his bedside tv. Dvds have yet to make it onto the children's wards at Southampton General, but we didn't mind.
On Friday I was at Taunton’s College in Southampton to talk to students about the Museum's competition for young writers. We’re looking for the opening of a novel - just 200 - 300 words. Creative Writing Group members were a bit thin on the ground - unfortunately the meeting clashed with the Valentine’s Day Speed Dating Event…
But I still met some lovely students. Competition entries have started to arrive at the Museum. The closing date is 1st March.
On Sunday morning I was on Radio Solent. I thought they’d want me to talk about Jane Austen and ideas of true love, heroes, Valentine's cards etc. etc., and I was ready to discourse on Fanny Price’s mother as a cautionary tale, and how Jane Austen heroines didn’t swoon but had their heads screwed on. Oh, why was I nervous? All we talked about were the writing workshops. The next one is this Saturday - The House - but as it has sold out we have an extra one on 27th February. Families in Fiction is sold out too, so we are running an extra one of those on May 15th. My Radio Solent interview was on at the same time as Sir Terry’s new show AND as The Archers Omnibus with the episode in which Phil dies - the radio equivalent of being up against two giant speed dating events. (I wiped away a tear or two yesterday evening when Jill opened the Valentine's card Phil had written for her.)
Did Jane Austen ever send or receive Valentine's cards or messages? Well, none have survived, but she might have. She certainly enjoyed riddles and verses - think of Emma and Harriet Smith and Frank Churchill…

2010-01-29T15:12:00.002Z

At the Museum again today, and I have just been to Alton College, talking to some really delightful 6th formers about our writing competion. I've realised that judging it is going to be horribly difficult; I'm glad I'm not the only person doing it.
The first snowdrops are out under the yew tree and the first aconite has appeared. Celia, the gardener, has spent the last few days having bonfires - I wish I'd been here for those. The fire is still smoking even after a night of heavy rain. It has just started snowing, and there are still hideous grey heaps of snow and ice beside some roads from the last lot. I feel as though it will still be here in July.
The Museum's new reading group meets on Monday 1st. We are discussing Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. (I have found it very enjoyable but strangely unengaging.) Wednesday 10th February is the next meeting of the Writing Group. The "homework" is to write something inspired by a small ad ( or a gumtree.com ad). New members are very welcome.

The Writer Back In Residence

2010-01-24T09:38:00.002Z

Today is my first day back at the Museum for a month. I have felt like The Writer Not In Residence - it has been awful. Each day I was meant to be here it has been too snowy. Chawton seems to be in the middle of The Hampshire Snow Triangle, a place where people end up spending two nights awaiting rescue in their freezing cars. But today I’m back, and today … it’s snowing.
I have had some really nice emails from an American writer. Her name is Chris Stewart and she is doing a brilliant project , inspired by Sense and Sensibility, which involves reading along with Marianne Dashwood. Anyway, Chris asked me some questions and I thought I might try to answer them here…they are big questions and I’m sure that my answers will change as my time here goes on.

1. How has being in Jane Austen’s house affected your writing and your feelings about yourself as a writer?
2. Is it inspiring being there, or do you feel any pressure to produce something amazing or a mixture of both?
3. Have you adopted any of Jane Austen’s writing habits under the influence of the house (and possibly her presence!) or do you share similarities in your style of writing already?
4. What projects are you working on, and does Jane Austen figure in any of them?
5. If you were doing a project such as mine, what would you be interested in learning/doing?

Well, I think the first thing I have noticed is how 200 years now seems to be such a short time, and I think this has changed the way I feel about everything.
If 200 years isn’t so long, the past and its people are more present, and less seems to be lost. I find this comforting. One of the odd and lovely things about being here is that some of the objects in the Museum are things that were once owned by my great aunts. For instance, a box that was carved by Jane’s brother, Francis, was, until not that long ago, something that my Aunt Diana kept cereal box and cracker toys in for the amusement of visiting children; and some of the smaller portraits I recognize as having once hung on their walls. I only had vague ideas of who these various Austens were when I was growing up - I probably wasn’t paying attention - but here they are now. It is as though I am following them round and we have all ended up where we should be. I do have this feeling - probably quite misplaced - of coming home. And this is ridiculous - why should I pay more attention to this branch of my family tree than any others? There are thousands of people on the same level of the family tree as me. And I have some really interesting Scottish ancestors too, including a captain who was shipwrecked on an island and was rescued to tell the tale. I had an Indian grandmother who died when my father was tiny - we know close to nothing about her. These stories are what I’m interested in writing about at the moment. It will be fiction, but the novel I’m trying to finish follows the story of five generations of a family from Hampshire to Canada and India and back again. I’m only going as far back as the Edwardians and the novel isn’t to do with Jane Austen.
I’m interested in ideas about home and belonging (and not belonging). But I can see that it is rather convenient of me to feel the pull of Jane Austen’s cottage in Chawton, which happens to be gorgeous and only 27 miles from where I live, rather than the houses in Scotland or India or Canada or the north of England where other ancestors dwelt.
My novel is about (I hope) the pull of places. It was going to be called Dancing on The Boat but now it is called The Home Museum.
Being here has really helped with the writing of it. It has helped me to shape it. I love being in a museum and I have been so interested to see what goes on behind the scenes. I’m so interested in the whole business of curating - it seems to me to be rather like what I have to do with the huge amount of material that I have to work with; and what any novelist has to do when they decide which things, scenes, conversations, images and so on are going to be included in the novel. I guess I’m also interested in the way that we curate our own lives, the stories and memories that we keep, the things that we decide are significant and those that we discard deliberately or without a thought
The fourth generation person in my novel is a library assistant (a fantasy job of mine) but volunteers to help in a rather dusty local museum (hence the title) which was once the house where her great grandparents lived. My fictional museum is nothing like The JAHM which is never ever dusty. I’m still a long way from it being finished, and who knows if anybody will want to publish it, but my aim now is that the semi-amorphous mass will become a sleek creature by August 1st - an evolution from amoeba (the single cell of the first idea) through countless stages (creatures who dwell where there is no light) to the colossal squid of my ambition and dreams.

Question 2
It is inspiring being here. I think everybody finds that - that is why there are so many dedicated volunteer stewards. It would be hard not to find the house and garden and its setting restful and beautiful and so inspiring - there's peace and holy quiet here. There is space to think here. It must be bit different for Louise and Ann and the other people who work so hard here, ensuring that this wonderful atmosphere is maintained, but of course they are here because they love the place and the wonderful spells it casts.
I don’t find it intimidating, though. I don’t expect ever to be in Jane Austen’s league - who could? So I just carry on and write the novel that I feel compelled to and try to make it as good as I can. Meanwhile, I can read and learn, from her letters as well as from her novels.

Question 3
Her writing habits - I’m not quite sure. I’ll have to think about that. With Christmas and the snow-extended school holidays it seems a long time since I did any proper writing. That’s probably enough for now. I should do some writing…

Snowy New Year Message.

2010-01-06T11:12:00.004Z

Well, Happy New Year from what seems to have become a rather feeble blog. Today (Wednesday 6th January) was meant to be the next meeting of the House's Writing Group, but I'm afraid it is just too snowy and the roads are just too treacherous. So, dear reader, in the unlikely event that you were planning on battling your way through the snow to get to the Museum this afternoon, please don't. I will fix another time for another Wednesday soon and let people know.
Hope you are somewhere warm and dry with a good book,
Rebecca.x.

High Dough

2009-12-09T13:24:00.002Z

John White, the genial Georgian butler, was at the Museum last weekend. He installed himself in the kitchen and regaled visitors (guests?) with tales of Christmases past. Apparently a pudding is the name for guts - and so puddings are named for what they were once contained in. Eeuch. So, if we describe somebody as being a bit of a pudding, we may be being accurate in more ways than one. Picture the Prince Regent, whose stomach was said to hit the floor when he was undressed…
On Jane Austen’s birthday (December 16th) admission to the Museum is free. Come and see the Museum decorated for Christmas and join us for coffee and mince pies. Sorry, no truly authentic puddings on offer.

Turning Into Mrs Bennet

2009-12-09T13:05:00.002Z

Last Friday was my daughter Daisy’s 13th birthday. It does seem a bit of a milestone, even though she seems to have been at this stage for a while. I guess the teenageness starts when they can go into town with their friends and when they go to secondary school. Copies of Mizz appear in the bathroom, regiments of Barry M nail polishes mass on the windowsills …
One of the presents I bought Daisy was the Marvel graphic fiction version of Pride and Prejudice. Daisy has read the original already, but this Marvel version adapted by Nancy Butler is fab. It is one of my favourite ways of distracting myself when I’m in the Museum Reading Room & meant to be writing.
One of the most devastating things anybody ever said to me was that I look like Princess Fiona, in Shrek - in her ogre form. (This was my son, then aged around eight, so it must be true.) Now here I am again, I’m Mrs Bennet in the comic book version of Pride and Prejudice.
Lately I’ve been wondering if a time comes when you are no longer the heroine in your own life. I hope I’ll never not be the protagonist, but that can come too; not at 43 I hope.
Of course I’d never try to marry Daisy off (well not yet), but the older I get, the more I like Mrs Bennet and dislike Mr Bennet. He was so inert - at least she was trying to do things, albeit foolish things in a foolish way.

Shopping

2009-11-26T20:32:00.004Z

If you need an I Love (heart) Mr Darcy magnet / wrapping paper with matching tag / poster of a smouldering Colin Firth, then the Museum shop is the place to come. There has even been a request for I heart Mr. Darcy wallpaper. The shop always smells nice - maybe from the polished floors, maybe from the locally-sourced lavender which has been plaited into ‘wands’, maybe from the smells of new and old books, or maybe from some magical combination of it all. Today the card reader bit of the till was down - it’s currently being fixed - because last night’s storms brought a six hour power cut to the village. But despite the weather, visitors keep arriving. Now is probably a really good time to visit the Museum - it’s much quieter than in the summer and you may find that you have it almost to yourself. You could also come to do some of your Christmas shopping. You can visit the shop without paying to go into the Museum if you are in a hurry.
I’ve wondered if it would be possible to do all of my Christmas shopping here. I got a little stuck when I came to my brother-in-law, Keith. He certainly doesn’t heart Mr. Darcy. My husband suggested buying Keith some Jane Austen post-it notes and crossing out “Jane Austen” and writing Arsene Wenger on each one... But actually Keith is an excellent gardener, so I could probably find something here for him. There are plenty of things to do with gardens in the shop.
I am fascinated by the whole Behind The Scenes At The Museum thing. I love learning about how it all works. The most popular things in the shop are, unsurprisingly, biographies, books and postcards. Ann (House and Shop Manager) keeps a collection of rare and out of print books, and gets calls from all over the world. Somebody recently bought a set of rare editions as a 21st birthday present for his daughter. It’s vulgar to say it, but £650! I would heart somebody who did that. The worldwide Austen industry - the books, the movies, the adaptations etc. etc. - must generate billions. Of this only a tiny fraction comes to the Museum, though film and tv companies do sometimes donate things. (Anne Hathaway’s bluey-green dress is here.) There aren’t huge mark-ups in the shop either. Ann also told me that she tries to keep some things that are unique, made only for Jane Austen’s House Museum.
For £1.50 you can have A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian (complete with her sister’s illustrations). Another big seller is a book of Hugh Thomson’s illustrations for Pride and Prejudice (a mere £2.50). There are duck feather pens dyed all colours (or from very exotic ducks) for £1.50. These are secretly biros - much less messy than the real quills (£4.75) which you can buy either au naturel or with steel nibs. There are pleasingly heavy glass inkwells in jewel colours (£15) too. One of my aunts has a phobia about feathers. I think the lavender hand cream might be better for her. Or perhaps The Jane Austen Cookbook (£9.99) (which is really more The Martha Lloyd Cookbook) and gives you recipes for delights such as Almond Cheesecakes, Mrs Fowle’s Orange Wine, Spruce Beer and Solid Syllabubs. Though as my feather-fearing aunt is a vegan, she wouldn't want to know about Forcemeat Balls or A Harrico of Mutton…
For Celeste, my newest niece, I’m going to buy the gorgeous old-fashioned teddy. He is jolly tall and has an extravagant bow made from the limited edition silk that matches Jane’s pelisse. He’s only £9.95. You can choose from cravats (huge demand?) scarves, bound journals and Pure Little Bags Of Fragrance (£6) in the same silk. It’s made by Whitchurch Silk Mill - another of the local businesses that Ann likes to buy from. Actually, that bear might be for me.
It is odd, this whole museum shop thing. What is it makes us long for a lavender bag or a glass inkwell? I guess we just are hoping to go home with a little bit of magic in our pockets.

Ungiven Gifts

2009-11-22T19:04:00.002Z

Another crazy windy day at Chawton, nothing like Anne Elliot’s ideas of the season when she is contemplating where she should go when Kellynch Hall is let
“…Anne, though dreading the possible heats of September in all the white glare of Bath, and grieving to forgo all the influence so sweet and so sad of the autumnal months in the country ….”
I love that “influence so sweet and so sad of the autumnal months”. There was nothing sweet about the weather last Saturday which saw was the first of my writing workshops here. We were in the lovely new Learning Centre. The wind howled. Occasionally the lights dimmed, and at one point a light dusting of new plaster fell onto the table where people were working, the result, I suppose, of a particularly savage gust penetrating the new roof. The Learning Centre stood firm, though, and there were no casualties. 12 people came, people with roots in Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Scotland, as well as Hampshire. They all seemed to have a good time and certainly wrote plenty. I loved meeting them.
One of the exercises (and I know that this is a standard of creative writing workshops) was on creating/developing a character by writing about his/her possessions. As well as the whole Museum, and Jane’s gorgeous pelisse (autumn colours), we had The Handling Collection for inspiration. Unpacking it is like unpacking the Christmas decorations. Everything is wrapped in tissue paper (or less picturesque bubble wrap.) There are impossibly narrow white kid gloves (the leather feels like mushroom peelings) and a stretching tool that looks like a pair of chopsticks, mourning brooches and rings (one, to fit a tiny finger, was for Sir Francis Austen), a fan carved from horn (the colour something like the plastic of those tortoiseshell hair clips) and another that is, I think, ivory. Regency accessories were terribly dainty, the fans and parasols are tiny. There are seals; one has a carnelian handle, one is a bird and one is a dog. There is a heavy black locket which opens to reveal two woven ovals of hair. There are buckles and lace collars… so much treasure.
What would their owners think if they knew this stuff was now at Jane Austen’s House Museum? And what of the elephant, the goats, the horned beasts that were the original (and doubtless unwilling) donors of some of these articles?
Some of the objects, a candlestick for instance, are well used. Some must be treasured things, carefully kept, whilst some, like some of the gloves, look as though they were never worn. Perhaps some of the things that survive and are donated to museums are things that people didn’t much like, the sort of things that end up at the back of a drawer - The Unwanted Gifts. I have a box under the bed, I know lots of people do, and there are things in there, not so much unwanted gifts, though there are a few of those (a plastic gravy boat with integral strainer, a china tree for hanging your rings on whilst you are washing up) but also things I have bought as presents and not yet given to anybody. Will the gravy boat (with integral strainer), the Dennis the Menace pencils (the party bag spares), the Make Glitter Pictures kit, and the lavender-scented teddy that you warm in a microwave be part of somebody’s Handling Collection one day, exhibits in a museum of ungiven and unwanted gifts? I hope not!

What Am I Doing Here?

2009-11-12T14:54:00.001Z

Well, I’m sitting in the Reading Room, which is jolly cold, today being foggy and Novemberish. The floorboards in this room are mostly original, about an octave-stretch wide, and settled in gentle waves. Nobody could be good at marbles in this room. I’m told that the chill of the cellar sucks the heat from the room away, but as with the rest of the house, there is nothing at all spooky here. Each morning and evening members of staff go through lovely rituals of waking up the house and putting it to sleep. Shutters are opened or closed, exhibits illuminated or put to rest in darkness, flowers placed on windowsills or returned to the stone sink. This stone sink is backstage in a lovely little utility room, not big enough to be called a scullery. It makes me think of the scene in Rebecca where the narrator finds the dogs’ leads, wellingtons etc and puts on old mac, and then finds, horribly, a handkerchief with the initial R. By the way, there is (not horribly at all) one of Cassandra’s handkerchiefs upstairs.
But apart from admiring sinks and having a lovely time, here are some of the things I’m doing or about to do.
1. Writing Workshops. First one on Saturday - Creating Characters. Come and spend the day writing in this most inspiring of settings. Further workshops in February, March, and April.
2. Competition for Schools. Aims: (i) to celebrate 200 years since Jane Austen arrived at the cottage and (i) to encourage local young writers. We’ll be asking for a 200-300 word opening of a novel. Three age group categories for key stages 3,4 & 5 (that means secondary school and sixth form.) Closing date 1st March. Cash prizes! Details will follow on the website. I’m hoping to visit some local schools in the new year to talk about this.
3.Writing Group. First meeting is Wednesday November 25th at 4.45pm. If you’d like to belong to a supportive group of fellow writers, to share work and ideas, and give each other constructive criticism, please do come along. We’ll meet in the Learning Centre, probably fortnightly.
4. Reading Group. Would you like to belong to a Book Group? We’ll be looking at contemporary and classic fiction, maybe biography, whatever members are interested in. I know that there’s already an excellent reading Group at Chawton House Library - we won’t duplicate what they are doing. First meeting at 4.45pm on Monday November 30th.
5. General Lurking Around. The great pleasure of being here - peering at things, seeing the changes in the garden. (Brave marigolds battle on - the fig has lost its leaves.) When the stewards are short-staffed I pretend to be one of them and sit in the drawing room to welcome visitors. Blog Joke Spot: My son, Eddie (aged 9), watching football on tv with his Dad, noticed all of the stewards in their high-visibility jackets. ‘Who are those men, Dad? And why are they all called Stewart?’
6. Writing A Novel. Oh yes, that.
7. And this blog. I have never had a blog before and am so pleased that some people (many of whom have far more beautiful & clever blogs) are reading it. Thank you. But I don’t know if you can count writing a blog as an actual activity. I think it is meant to be more of an incidental thing.

Strange Things Seen On The Way To The Museum

2009-11-06T20:16:00.002Z

1. In the rough grass by the roadside where the bus stops was a soldier’s helmet - green plastic, quite possibly Early Learning Centre - but with the camouflage netting missing. It was there for a few days, but now has disappeared, perhaps reclaimed by its small owner.
2. A pretty girl eating Pringles - the tub is purplish-brown, denoting Texas Barbeque flavour. She gets off at The School of Art in Winchester. How could anybody eat Pringles (Texas Barbeque flavour or otherwise) at nine o’clock in the morning?
3. Badger poo. A mess of berries on the path by the Chawton roundabout. I had seen this stuff before and thought that it might be something fox-related. I learnt from Chris Packham on last week’s Autumnwatch what it really is. Mind the road, you badgers!

What Do Writers Wear?

2009-11-03T14:59:00.004Z

One of the first things that you’ll see if you visit the Museum is a copy of a morning dress (not a mourning dress). It’s displayed on a dressmaker’s dummy just beside the steward’s chair in the drawing room, like a headless presiding angel.
This is what the label says:

Morning Dress
Morning Dresses were worn for breakfast, which was eaten around 10am. These gowns were usually easy fitting and white in colour, worn with no corset for comfort and made from cotton or linen.

The dress at the Museum is made from soft ivory-coloured heavy cotton, and it does look comfortable. We know that Jane Austen was an early riser. She was the keeper of the tea and coffee (precious commodities that were kept in a locked cupboard), and she used to play the piano before other people were up. The 1810 square Clementi piano in the drawing room at the Museum isn’t Jane’s, but is “probably similar to the piano Jane bought after arriving here”. It has a gorgeous soft tone, nothing like the much-loved old warhorse that my 12 year old daughter bashes out The Can-Can on when she decides to get up early (or when one of her brothers is watching something that she doesn’t like on tv).
I imagine Jane wearing a soft morning dress when she was writing. I suspect that those early hours before the daily round of visits etc. were precious to her, the hours before she had to put on a corset and adopt her public persona. I think that writers today often wear some approximation of pyjamas when they are working. One needs to be warm enough (warm socks are a necessity) and to have nothing distracting on - no itchy tights or stiff collars. I remember envying Jo March in Little Women her “scribbling suit”. I’d have loved a bluey-black overall/pinafore kind of thing - the sort of garment that you wipe your nib on.
Some writers claim to write standing up and/or naked. I could never be one of those. In the novelist’s strange life, it would be easy to slip into 24 hour pyjama-wearing. In the brief period when I was only writing and didn’t have a proper paid job, I would often wonder if people could tell the difference between my so-called pull-ons and pyjamas. (The people who shopped from the same catalogue doubtless could.) I used to aim to abide by what I called The Pringle Principle, whereby if Alexandra Pringle, my editor at Bloomsbury, suddenly came to the door, I wouldn’t die of shame because of what I was wearing. (I aimed to abide by it, but I didn’t. I guess I was conscious of being on the slippery slope to wearing sweatpants, and trying to stop the inexorable downwards slide.) If you live in Southampton, there is a tiny chance that people will drop in on their way to France/The New Forest/ The Isle of Wight, but of course she never did. My mother’s German publisher has actually done this to her twice - it can happen - but so far Mum hasn’t been in.
At work, at The University of Southampton, it is easy to tell the Archaeologists from the Modern Linguists. I think that, sadly, I’m more in danger of being mistaken for one of the former than one of the latter. My sister, a painter (and a glamorous one) depressed my mother by telling her that it was obvious which people at a literary party were publishers and which people were writers.
I couldn’t help laughing at a recent report of Martin Amis and Will Self sharing a stage, each wearing the armour of a leather jacket, though I can quite understand wanting to don a carapace before taking the stage. I have a denim jacket that I used to wear all the time, though I’ve gone off it a bit; I’ve started to wonder if it looks like a big girl’s blouse. I wouldn’t mind having an Invisibility Cloak instead.
Meanwhile, I’m at the Museum today, wearing velvet (well, actually velourish) trousers and a cardigan and scarf. I don’t think it’s very far from these trousers to sweatpants. The people who work here all always look lovely, and I don’t feel smart enough, but then I suppose that I never feel smart enough.

Trafalgar Day

2009-10-25T20:17:00.002Z

It was strange being at Jane Austen's House on Trafalgar Day. Of course Jane and her mother and sister were still in that difficult nomadic period in 1805; they didn't move into the cottage until 1809. (Edward, what were you thinking of? How could you have let that go on so long?)
But sitting in the cottage and in the garden, seemingly so far away from everything, I had a sense of what it must have been like waiting for news, hoping for the letters that didn't arrive, and then came along in threes, the dreadful wait to know if loved ones were still alive.
A neighbour of ours, Bob, used to spend most of his time sitting outside his front door, waiting for visitors who didn't arrive, and calling out to passers-by "Been shopping? You'll never get rich that way!" and from under an umbrella "Nice weather - for ducks!" From late summer his refrain was "Everybody knows when my birthday is - it's Trafalgar Day!"
Do many people still know when Trafalgar Day is? I think Bob quite often had to add "21st October, of course!" I expect people had made more of a thing of Trafalgar Day when he was young.
Bob collected maritime memorabilia, prints of warships and clippers in gilt frames, ships in bottles, brass things... I think he had been in the merchant navy during the war.
I can't remember making him a birthday cake, but he'd start hinting about Christmas cakes in early November, so I always made him one of those. One year I used proper royal icing (not the sort that you just roll out) and recklessly used raw egg white. Afterwards, I spent weeks worrying that I had poisoned him and that forensics would soon be onto me (raw egg...old people...salmonella). I think that salmonella can take a few weeks to manifest itself. Some months later he did get ill, and he died not long after that, but from cancer. After Bob died, his son finally arrived and threw the nautical pictures and ornaments in a skip. Who would want those old knick-knacks?
It's strange, the things people keep and the things they throw away. My family has far too much stuff. At the moment we keep things by default.
I imagine that some of the things in the Museum were kept because they were Aunt Jane's. Some probably survived by accident, whilst some things, of course, were deliberately destroyed. Some things might take on a significance after the owner's death that they never possessed when he or she was still alive.
Different things entrance me each time I walk around the Museum Here is a lace collar...this teapot was probably given to Cassandra on her 60th birthday...Frank carved this box...this is Jane's very own pelisse - beautiful silk in autumn colours - I wonder why it is so well preserved - maybe she didn't like it and that is why it survived. Or maybe she didn't wear it much - or maybe it was newish and she never had the chance to wear it. It's beautiful - I long to touch it, but it's locked away behind glass.
Bach home, I feel like throwing stuff out. I should be sticking to the rule more - beautiful or useful, beautiful or useful. I'm not planning on dying soon, but I certainly wouldn't want to leave behind a cupboard full of plastic lunchboxes with mismatched lids.

Yew Berries

2009-10-18T12:48:00.002+01:00

Yew Berries
There are yew trees in the garden. They are older than the crucial two hundred years, so they would have been here. Recently somebody found a key hidden in one of these trees - a very old key - but nobody knows what it was for. It didn’t fit any of the doors. Could there be a secret door or a box hidden somewhere?
At the moment the yews are gorgeous, studded with sticky carmine berries, which fall to make the flagstone paths treacherous to visitors, even those with the most sensible shoes. Upstairs in the Museum is a pair of wooden pattens - not Jane’s - though she would have had some just like them. I wonder if they would give protection against slipping on yew berries. I’ve just read an article that says that bright red lipstick is in this season. Yew berry red would be a lovely shade, though probably not for someone (like me) with yellowish skin tones.
Celia, the Museum gardener, is one of the people that I most want to meet. There is still lots out at the moment, but I suspect that this is a garden where there is always lots out. Jane Austen’s mother worked in the garden, and it used to extend far beyond the beech hedges and soft brick walls of today. Jane’s brother had a shrubbery planted so that the ladies could take an appropriate sort of exercise. Jane described herself as a “desperate walker”; this must have been one of her methods of composition, of finding the space to think. Her walks took her far beyond the shrubbery. Visitors today will take a turn in the garden and take photos of each other against the perfect backdrop it provides.
Sometimes I like looking at those plant catalogues that fall out of the Sunday papers. I imagine that if I did buy one of those “instant border - colour all year round for just £19.99” sets, and that if I managed to plant everything in the right place, and if it all worked and the promises came true, my garden might look like the Museum’s garden. (Of course it would have to be an “instant border true to the gardens of the early nineteenth century” set.) My reality is north-facing, hen-ravaged patch of mossy lawn. Perfect gardens don’t belong to slapdash gardeners.
Professor Kathryn Sutherland gave a lecture here earlier this month. The subject was Jane Austen’s manuscripts. One of the many things I learnt is that there are two types of writers: programmatic (who spend ages planning and sketching) and immanent (who will spend a long time thinking, but then will get it all down on paper quite quickly). Jane Austen seems to have been one of the latter. Knowing that there are these two acknowledged types is quite a comfort. I’ve always felt a bit of a fraud and rather slapdash, as though I don’t work hard enough at planning individual chapters and scenes, and don’t do enough experimenting with structures etc. etc. I do tend to think a lot and then get it all down on the page quite speedily, though prior to much editing of course. I suppose that one could still be an immanent writer who is slapdash and bit of a fraud, though...
I shan’t tell my creative writing students that I also learnt from Professor Sutherland that Jane Austen’s perfect, precise punctuation wasn’t all her own work. She had an editor, William Gifford, whose hand can be detected, transforming her manuscripts (which consisted of pages smaller than A5) into the polished works that we know today. Some scholars and critics have regretted that some of her manuscripts have survived, revealing some of the idiosyncrasies of her spelling and punctuation, but the genius, the unique voice is there on the tiny pages - perfect and never slapdash.

School Days

2009-10-13T12:04:00.002+01:00

The journey from Southampton to Chawton for a feeble non-driver can take almost two hours. I suspect that it doesn't feel much slower than when Jane Austen made the same journey 200 years ago, but I am absolutely not grumbling. I have what must be one of the loveliest jobs in the world. It is up there with being the keeper of that tropical island, though I don't get to stay the night.
Last week it poured, but today, Monday 12th October, it's golden and lovely. There are crushed walnuts on the village pavements. Mondays are usually school days, but today there are no school parties.
On one of my first days, the school party was from an independent school for girls from near Chichester. Last week it was from a big secondary school near Southall. The students explore the house and garden then don white cotton gloves to handle nineteenth century artefacts, parasols and so on. If they are Grade Four or above they may play the piano. After lunch there is the walk (in Jane Austen's footsteps) along the road and up to the big house owned by her brother Edward. It is amazing how slowly teenagers can walk. Louise, the Education and Collections Manager, stops them just before Chawton House comes into sight to tell them that they are about to experience their Pemberley Moment ("So what first attracted you to millionaire Mr. Darcy?"). And then they are struck by the contrast between Jane's life (shared bedroom where the fire wasn't lit until the last weeks of her life etc. etc.) and her brother's.
Up at the big house there is dancing. The students are given lovely sprigged empire-line dresses (some wear them over their jeans and hoodies) or frock coats made of a gorgeous velvety moleskinny material. I'd always imagined that the men's clothes would have been itchy. With a mixed school there is a lovely moment when the girls emerge from the grand dining room where they get changed and meet their partners with much giggling and a few sharp intakes of breath from the boys. Some girls will always want to be boys and wear the frock coats instead.
Louise says that whatever the school, there will always be a group of Lydia Bennets. They will always be in a certain position at the bottom of the grand hall by the window, and they will always fall about squealing and giggling.
Eventually the music stops, and the costumes are returned to the huge cupboards in the servant's corridor. The students meander back down the hill to the 21st century where the coaches and minibuses are waiting in the village car park. (And by the way, I'm told that all visits are fitted to the appropriate key stage of the national curriculum.)

New Writer in Residence

2009-10-07T16:56:00.003+01:00

This is the first time Jane Austen's House Museum has had a writer in residence - it's very exciting!

Follow Rebecca Smith's thoughts and writing via this blog.

Come and visit her in person at the museum on a Monday or Wednesday.