Join nursemaid to the Brontës, Nancy Garrs, on a virtual walk to see Keighley through Brontë eyes.
Speaker: Irene Lofthouse (dressed as Nancy Garrs)
Date: Tuesday 12 May 2026 6:30pm
Why did the Brontës go to Keighley? How did they get there? Who did they visit? What was the town like at time: the people, the shops, the buildings? When would they make the journey?
Discover where they shopped, heard and learned about music, found out about electricity, whooped with glee, developed drawing and painting skills, met and mixed with Keighley’s movers and shakers as well as the swelling number of migrants to the town.
Based on Keighley Library’s ‘In the footsteps of the Brontës’ trail-booklet by Keighley Local Studies, Nancy Garrs will add her own comments on the Brontë family she knew at Thornton and Haworth.
Irene Lofthouse is a first-generation Yorkshire lass of Irish heritage who has been telling tales since childhood. She has careered around many incarnations: caver, consultant, shoe-seller, storyteller, petrol-pumper, publisher amongst many others – but stories have been integral to them all. A cultural historian/researcher, writer, actor, Irene has appeared in a Ken Russell film, at the Edinburgh Fringe, featured on Radio 4, BBC Sounds, TV, stage, and at art/literature festivals performing her one-woman plays or giving talks. She’s particularly interested in making visible, invisible or forgotten lives and voices, in exploring new ways of seeing old stories and collaborating with literacy, historic agencies and universities to create accessible and fun learning resources. Co-founder of two community theatre groups, her poems and prose feature in many anthologies and she is a trustee of the JB Priestley Society, a trustee of the Undercliffe Cemetery Charity, a member of 26 Writers and The Friends of Bradford’s Becks.
Tickets: £10
Doors open: 6pm
Talk commences: 6:30pm
Location: Brontë Birthplace, 72 – 74 Market Street, Thornton, BD13 3HF
This talk will take place in person in the Posh Parlour.