New Year’s Honours: Helena Whitbread
Looking for information on Helena Whitbread’s biography of Anne Lister, I found notices that she had been honored with an MBE in King Charles’ New Year’s Honours List!
The Halifax Courier’s headlines read, “New Year’s Honours: Historian who uncovered ‘Gentleman Jack’ Diaries.”
Helena Whitbread’s own biography gives researchers like me reasons to hope, and to keep on working towards our goals. Indeed, the article calls her (and two others) “inspiring”. She receives the MBE – Member of the Order of the British Empire – for service to History and Literature.
The 2023 “New Year’s Honours” was the first “Honours List” of King Charles’ reign.
January 2023 also saw Helena awarded an honorary degree (D.Litt.) from the University of Sheffield.
Congratulations, Helena! Well deserved, after all your hard work.
Revealing Anne Lister of Shibden Hall
There are two connotations to the word “revealing”: to reveal (v) = to expose; revealing (adj) = enlightening, illuminating.
Either would actually fit the title of a 2010 BBC special that I watched Sunday evening. The wonderful things to see in the special Revealing Anne Lister: to see Helena Whitbread, who published some of Lister’s diaries in the 1980s; and … to SEE THE DIARIES!
You can read more about Helena Whitbread and her Lister books here.
I used to enjoy History to Herstory – a website on Yorkshire Women’s Lives, which used to have a wonderful section on Lister: pictures, extracts of the diaries by Whitbread and Jill Liddington (who’s published some further books on Lister’s diaries). But today I see the website has been “new and improved” — and frankly I’m not sure WHERE to find the bits and pieces about Lister that I loved. If you solve the mystery of their disappearance, do let me know.
The time period of Anne’s diaries make them VERY much of interest to Two Teens; and the story of the publications and the writers working on them are worthy of notice too. A high recommendation for the BBC special.
BBC discovers Anne Lister
Although the diaries of Yorkshirewoman Anne Lister, of Shibden Hall, have been in print for decades, the BBC has a new special, airing this weekend on BBC Two.
The press calls the series “Bold and Passionate” – and it undoubtedly centers on her lesbian affairs, for which the diaries — as published — are known. Pity no one yet has seen fit to give Anne’s audience a broader view of her highly interesting life.
Maxine Peake, stars. The Secret Diary of Miss Anne Lister, airing in two parts, starts Monday. Let’s hope some fan(s) post it to YouTube for those of us without access to the BBC.
some links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snjmd
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2010/wk22/feature_annelister.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bradford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8388000/8388858.stm – this one features a portrait of the real Anne.
http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/leisure/museums-galleries/shibden-hall/index.html – one of the sites on Anne’s home, Shibden Hall.
http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/index.php?targetid=5 – From History to Her Story, the best (and the original) web content on Anne, the diaries, the transcriptions and the resultant books. Features Helena Whitbread’s original work into deciphering the diaries.
By the way, Anne met the Ladies of Llangollen (that association was how I found Anne’s diaries, actually); I’ve posted her comments about them. Be sure to click on the actual diary entries and the letter excerpt concerning Anne’s thoughts on meeting with Sarah Ponsonby (Eleanor was unwell).
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 