Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

It’s that time of year again, when people start posting “spooky” Hallowe’en blogs, pics and videos. I famously detest the modern Hallowe’en, but am all in favour of the more recent rediscovery of the season as a time to honour the dead, perhaps via the Mexican Day of the Dead. Last night, I watched the classic Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal for the first time. (The one where the knight plays chess with Death.) Contrary to common belief, the film isn’t wall-to-wall bleakness, and Death actually has a sense of humour. I love his deadpan - excuse the pun - delivery when he is sawing down a tree in which a man who has just escaped death is hiding.  Yep, I’m Death. I’m just sawing down this tree because your time is up. Nothing to see here. As you were. (I paraphrase). Anyway, it got me thinking about literary portrayals of Death, and how Death in books is often anything but bleak. Or even final. Here are my top choices: 1. Discworld by Terry Pratchet ...

Last week, I wrote about a historical discovery I made after a visit to Halifax Minster, final resting place of Anne Lister. I mentioned that  there was a lot of radical, grassroots religion going on in the West Riding in the 18th century, and I ended up going down quite a rabbit hole of research. One of the places that research led me was to this monograph about the man I believe one of my brothers was named after: He is sometimes called “The Wesley of the Baptists”, and indeed knew the Wesleys and Whitfield, but ultimately formed his own New Connection of Baptist and Independent Methodist congregations, which eventually became the Baptist Union of Great Britain. It was his inspiring preaching tours that led to the creation of a congregation at Queensbury (then named Queenshead after its local pub, popular on the pack horse route between Bradford and Halifax. This in turned spawned my own spiritual home at Clayton Baptist, now under a decade from celebrating its b...

Following on from last week’s literary adventure, this weekend I went to a marvellous Anne Lister event at the marvellous Halifax Minster. The event featured, Sally Wainwright who wrote the Gentleman Jack script, Anne Choma who wrote the tie-in book, and O’Hooley & Tidow who sang the Gentleman Jack song. This is the church where Anne Lister was baptised, worshipped, and was buried. It’s a very old church, which started as a monastic mission. (Hence the title Minster). As you can see from the picture above, by complete fluke (or Providence) I was sitting next to Anne Lister herself! Or rather, what is left of her memorial. (She is buried somewhere near the font). The memorial unfortunately got broken up for various reasons, so the Minster is hoping to raise money to create a new one. Something tells me they won’t be short of donors! While I was in the queue for the loo (lol!) I read a plaque on the wall which I found very interesting. Near this Place in the same ...

It was a beautiful sunny day in Bradford on Saturday for Bradford Lit Fest 2019. And what a lovely, happy day it was for me. I started off by going to a panel on Mapping Fantasy Worlds. Who doesn’t love a fantasy map? Or indeed any map? I was pretty surprised, though, by the answer to my question: did any of the panel have imaginary worlds as a child? None! Adrian Tchaikovsky said he got into fantasy worlds through role playing games. Interesting, because I’m currently listening to the audio book of Ready Player One (narrated by Will Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher). Personally, I’ve never been that interested in RPG. I always preferred to create my own worlds. But there you go! I then moved onto The History of Snow White, with one of my favourite BookTubers, Jen Campbell. Again, what could I not love about that? The nicest thing was that, when I asked her to sign my copy of The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night, she remembered my name! What a lovely person! ...

Last night Anne Lister of Shibden Hall seduced her latest victim - me! With the first episode of TV drama Gentleman Jack airing on BBC1, a whole new set of people were introduced to a character I have been aware of most of my life. And while I've had a lifelong love affair with her estate of Shibden Park and family seat of Shibden Hall, last night was the first time I was definitely on Team Anne for more than just her legacy of landscape gardening and home improvements. Don't get me wrong, Anne has always been a character of interest, although I do feel her reputation rather overshadows her other relatives. Which is why, when I wanted to write a Shibden Hall story for Come into the House , I chose to write about the Listers of the early 18th century. So, what gratification to find them mentioned in the drama script, too! You may have missed it the first time, but listen out for the mention of two brothers who tried to import wood from America. That was part of t...

"I write asexual fairytales" - BBC How often does an opportunity like this come up? "The BBC are running a special week on Bradford, across all media. Send us your stories." My home town. On the BBC. And it coincides perfectly with my crowdfunding campaign for Asexual Fairy Tales . I can't send the email fast enough! Which is how it happens that - on an unusually springlike morning - a shiny, black vehicle containing camera equipment turns up on my street of small, back-to-back houses, with an operator and a reporter, ready to start filming. I have warned Louise from BBC News how small my house is, and have been assured the camera will be a small one. Obviously, she meant small by BBC standards. Still, the cameraman is unfazed by the fact that one camera and stand fills up practically all the available floor space. We squash in, just as we always do with friends and relatives. And, as it's a nice day, we film some stuff on the front step, and in the...

In case you have somehow failed to notice, loyal readers, I have written a book of Asexual Fairy Tales, which I am currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The illustrations are by my lovely daughter, Anna Hopkinson, and SilverWood Books have agreed to publish it if we meet our target. All we need now are backers. We've got a fair few already - 60 as I write this blog. If you are one of them, thank you so much! We can't do it without you. But we need more. And we've only got until 28th February to make it happen! The great thing is that February is LGBT History Month in the UK, so it coincides with some great promotional opportunities. So, what's in this book, I hear you ask? Twelve tales, some original, others retelling of classic tales from around the world. Tales from Greek mythology, 1001 Nights, Arthurian legend. Japanese, Scandinavian and German collections. Even a 20th-century fairy tale from the days of silent film. Featuring many of your old favourites fro...

As writers, we are asked lots of questions. Most are some variation on: Are you still writing? How's the writing going? Are you writing anything at the moment? We writers can feel pretty frustrated by these questions as, for us, they are the equivalent of asking a plumber: "Done any plumbing lately?" Or asking a specialist doctor: "How's the gynaecology going?" However, we know you mean well and are interested in our work. So, in answer to your questions, I thought I'd bring you up to date with my three main projects. Asexual Fairy Tales This is a book of retold and original fairy tales I've been working on with my daughter, Anna, who has done the beautiful illustrations. It's all written, and I'll be launching a crowdfunding campaign to fund it on Kickstarter. (You pledge money to help fund it, you get a signed book and/or other goodies). I'm doing it this way as I believe it's the best way to connect the book with it'...

Several times on this blog, I have referred to the story of Mary Taft, who in 1726 supposedly gave birth to 17 rabbits. In my discussions, it has usually been linked with ideas of parthenogenesis, monstrous births and fears about the contents of women's wombs. And now the 17 rabbits have surfaced again, in the film The Favourite , about Queen Anne, the last (officially recognised) Stuart monarch, and her court favourites Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham. In the film, Queen Anne has 17 pet rabbits, which she keeps in little cages in her private chambers, and lets out to hop around and be petted at various intervals throughout the film. We are told that each of these rabbits represents a child that Anne lost through miscarriage, stillbirth or cot death. I have to say, the rabbits are incredibly cute, and provide some much-needed relief from some of the more disturbing aspects of the film. Having done a fact-check, I can tell you that the real Queen Anne did not keep pet rabbits (as...