Helena Whitbread

Yesterday Labour announced an extension of the independent film tax credit. I used the opportunity to raise the importance of the film industry to Calderdale's economy with @lisanandy . Film and TV was worth 850,000 to Calderdale last year alone.

" I rarely meet with those who interest me, who have the charm that brings me back to that disguised and hidden nature that suits not with the world." [Anne Lister. 1st May 1825]

'...[Mme de Boyve] said I had the qualities d'une dame & d'un homme. Professed to like me very much.' [Anne Lister. Paris. 12th October 1824

'Miss Pickford has read the Sixth Satyr [sic] of Juvenal. She understands these matters well enough” (Journal 26.7.1823. CDA. Ref. SH:7/ML/E/7).

'At 11 set off to Halifax in the gig…Called at Shepherd’s, the breech-maker’s, in Southgate and ordered a pair of leather knee-caps to keep my knees warm when I am reading and save me the trouble of having the plaid to lay over them'. [Anne Lister. 17 Jul 1823]

'Today being the coronation of George 4, all the haymakers (10 of them, including our 3 farming men) have had a shilling apiece and a good additional quantity of beer to drink the king’s health [Anne Lister 19 July 1821]

'I consider cheerfulness under all proper circumstances as a duty we owe to our friends, [&] to ourselves.' [Anne Lister. Tuesday 7th November 1822

“Thought…I would write an account of my acquaintance with M[ariana, surely, in a series of letters to a friend. Think of calling myself Constant Durer, from the verb, dure, to endure.”[Diary extract 16.12.1822].

Anne Lister was at a social evening at Tom Rawson's home where,'...such songs as 'Listen,Listen, to the Voice of Love' and Salley[sic] in our alley' were sung without music. I sang 'Early Days'&'Hail to the Chief who in Triumph Advances'...I then sang 'Pray Goody'.[8th Aug.1818]

@penguinrandom 'Mantel Pieces' - an anthology of Hilary Mantel's journalistic columns for various newspapers and magazines. Also, I have bought Simone de Beauvoir's 'Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter' which I read many years ago - but I now want to revisit her work.

#HappyNewYear! What book will be your first read of 2024?

'...Speaking of my oddity,Mrs Priestley said she always told people I was natural,but she thought nature was in an odd freak when she made me.I looked significantly & replied the remark was fair & just & true. [Anne Lister 19.6.1824.]

Speaking of Maria Barlow, Anne's Parisian lover: 'I[sabella] N[orcliffe] would say that Mrs B[arlow] was “steean cauld?"(cold as a stone) perhaps she would be no favourite but Isabella shall not choose friends for me.'Letter from A.Lister, Paris,to her Aunt Anne,dated 12.12.1824.

"I must think of some better plan of reading in future; for I feel that I have hitherto wandered over too many books with too little thought, & have always read too cursorily to do half the good that ought to be done.' [Anne Lister 26th February, 1821.]

Lou [Belcombe]...when I talked of esteem & high opinion said she would rather have my love than esteem. I told her she did not understand my love & that she was too cold for me.She owned she appeared so but said she could convince me to the contrary. [Anne Lister. 17.12.1818.]

'I must think of some better plan of reading in future; for I feel that I have hitherto wandered over too many books with too little thought, & have always read too cursorily to do half the good that ought to be done.' [Anne Lister 26th February, 1821.]

"Mrs Simpson … told Mariana this morning she could not bear me, that I was the only woman she was ever afraid of. Wondered how anyone ever got acquainted with me. Mentioned my deep-toned voice as very singular". [Anne Lister. 22.3.1820.]

'Mme de Boyve] said I had the qualities d'une dame & d'un homme. Professed to like me very much.' [Anne Lister. Paris. 12th October 1824.]

On meeting Sibbella MacLean 'I felt that if I looked at her much I might express more than was desirable not that it was love but that sort of tenderness I always feel towards interesting women I did not therefore look at her scarce at all.' Anne Lister 23.4.1822.

'Musing on the subject of being my own master, of going to Buxton in my own carriage... meeting with an elegant girl of family and fortune paying her attention taking her to see Castleton staying all night having a double bedded room gaining her affections' [Anne Lister 3.5.1820]