Thomas Hood wrote:

Raving Lunatic wrote: Once you are the big sister you find yourself helping others who need that. I should know, I am the oldest of five.

As a teenager, Burnett herself took responsibility for her younger siblings after both her parents had died.

"Following the death of her mother in 1867, the 18-year-old Frances was now the head of a family of two younger siblings. She turned to writing to support them all, with a first story published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868."

Tom

WOW I didn't know that. It is amazing what we can bring out from deep within ourselves in such situations.....

Thomas Hood wrote:

WildCityWoman wrote:Ahhhh! I like this thread . . . quiet.

That's 'cause we're thinking hard . An unreformed hippy ought to really dig this book of Magic!

And the garden! Oh, I'm a sucker for gardens.

You sense the subtle healing and invigorating influences of growing things?

Tom

I assume the unreformed hippy is me? Or you?

Anyway, Happy New Year to ya'!

(If I already replied to this post of yours, please forgive me - I have that 'old people's disease', but I don't remember whatcha' call it.

Hi Carly, I saw yellow in the buds of "daffydowndillys" yesterday. May your year have many blooms.

WildCityWoman wrote:I assume the unreformed hippy is me? Or you?

Well, in my way I am unreformed too. I like the Renaissance better. Just read William Lilly's autobiography (from Gutenberg) -- a truly magical guy.

(If I already replied to this post of yours, please forgive me - I have that 'old people's disease', but I don't remember whatcha' call it.

You did, but in my old age I quickly forget and need to be reminded -- if I hear it in the first place May you and I forget our troubles and disappointments as we watch the flower grow.

Tom

Just a point here. I was an 'only' child and reared by just one parent, my mother. However, she did the opposite of ignore me and made me the centre of her world which is probably not so healthy either.

I used to stay with my Aunt who had five children of her own. I was the youngest. They lived on the Lancashire Moors which are not all that different to the Yorkshire moors, being the adjoining county.

I loved staying with my Aunt (in name only, no blood relation) and although, because I was younger than the others and was often a nuisance to them, wanting to join in their games, was bullied a little now and again, I still always wanted to stay. To my shame, I can't ever remember missing my mother when I stayed for a few weeks in the summer holidays so that my Mother could go to work.

I often wonder what I would have become without them.

Here is a picture of the Yorkshire Moors as in the book:-



I will post a picture of the Lancashire Moors area where I lived if you like.

Pen

Penelope wrote:Here is a picture of the Yorkshire Moors as in the book. . .

Welcome back, Penelope, but shouldn't a moor have heather, gorse, and peat bogs?

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which seemed to be cut through bushes and low-growing things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently spread out before and around them. A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.

"It's -- it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round at her companion.

"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_York_Moors
-- picture of North York Moors from space

Scroll down to see heather in bloom. Now that's a real moor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorse

Tom

Penelope wrote:
Here is a picture of the Yorkshire Moors as in the book:-



I will post a picture of the Lancashire Moors area where I lived if you like.

Pen

thanks so much for posting this picture, I was trying to picture yorkshire as i read Secret Garden as part of my family is from there but i have never had occasion to visit. the closest i have come is the Peak district. my grandmother, who is 88, reminded me a few weeks ago that she wants me to check into some land in this area that she might have inherited (its a long story involving disowned descendants, racehorses and documents destroyed in WWII during the blitz) .. after looking at your picture, i'm tempted to go to yorkshire anyway just to ramble about and who knows, maybe we're rich, or if not, maybe i could turn the story into a novel ...

Thanks for that picture, it is not what I imagined it to be as I read the book.

quote Thomas Hood

shouldn't a moor have heather, gorse, and peat bogs?

That depends on the time of year Thomas Hood.

My Lancashire moor has peat and bogs, not sure about Yorkshire, but it is a very large County.

In Lancashire and Yorkshire the heather can be quite feeble in some years. Scotland has the best heather.

giselle:

The North Yorkshire moors are very wild and beautiful. Often raining and windy. When the sun does shine, the skylarks sing and it is glorious.

In hot summers we used to slide down the dry grass slopes on tea-trays!

Farmgirl:

I'm glad the picture helped. That is my grandson standing on the path, but that is a place called Malham and it has a huge land-fault so that schools often go there on field-trips to study the geography. There is a lot of geography in Yorkshire!!

The paths would not be so well kept in more remote places. However, my moors had a a Roman road across them, almost hidden by the grass.