198/365 Jack Burgoyne’s literary tours: Part 3 — Wuthering Heights

Not on the same trip as Oxford and Watership Down, but the same visit to England in 1976, Jack took us to Haworth and the surrounding moors. This was his idea because he was appalled when I told him I’d not read anything by the Brontës.

We visited the home of the Brontës, took a walk on Haworth Moor, part of the Pennine Way, and visited Top Withens, the ruin said to be Emily’s inspiration for Wuthering Heights. Somewhere in my house are photos of this trip, and one of me sitting on a stone “chair” that the Brontës allegedly often sat on.

When I returned to the States that fall, I decided to read Wuthering Heights and it is a book that I consider one of my favorites. I gave myself 15 minutes a day to read it before I began my homework, so the book took me a whole semester to read.

On my next visit to England in the winter of 1978-1979 I discovered Kate Bush, and her rendition of Wuthering Heights still gives me goosebumps.

Jack Burgoyne’s literary tours are something that I treasure to this day. He was an incredible man and I miss him.

Jeremy, Pat and Jack Burgoyne. Jeremy is showing off his blue suede shoes.

197/365 Jack Burgoyne’s literary tours: Part 2 — Watership Down

For some reason I was fascinated with rabbits in my late teens. It might have been the rabbits that lived in our backyard. It might have been something else, but I read, and loved, Watership Down in 1975 – 1976. Then I read Ronald Lockley’s  “The Private Life of the Rabbit” and when Jack Burgoyne asked me where we should visit, I asked if Watership Down was a real place.

It was and it was put on the itinerary along with Oxford, camping with Druids, touching the stones at Stonehenge, sitting on posts at Woodhenge and handling dangerous objects at an air force base.

Jeremy and Dona at an air force base where we picked up objects before seeing this sign.

Jack on a stump at Woodhenge

Our campsite outside a pub. The ground was lumpy so we thought we were sleeping on Druids

Stonehenge when you could touch the stones

Jeremy at Watership down

The next winter Jeremy painted “Dona at Stonehenge.”