The series of articles inspired by Rachel Ferguson's novel The Brontës Went to Woolworths ends as it began by covering some miscellaneous material of interest.
The remaining content to be featured includes some insightful and philosophical comments from Deidre Carne, the main narrator of the story, and the article ends with something about Rachel Ferguson herself.
The possibility that a writer's imagination can create reality is a topic of great interest that is featured in several other articles.
Deidre Carne is a journalist and would-be novelist. She has written a book that took on a life of its own:
“I had smugly intended my book to be about a family rather like ours, but...it’s already turned into an account of a barmaid’s career in an Edgware Road pub, and I can’t squeeze us in anywhere!
Odd things happen, too. I had called my pub, ‘The Three Feathers,’ and counted on there being heaps of pubs in Edgware Road, not called that, but looking a bit like my description. Before we left home, I went down Edgware Road to investigate, and found my pub, even down to the old-fashioned phonograph on the table in the upstairs sitting-room. And I thought, ‘I built that place.’”
Such 'coincidences' are very common in the lives of fiction writers. Diana Wynne Jones is just one example of someone whose imaginings came true.
Deirdre is aware of the possibility that unseen influences may be at work:
“But we’ve guessed right so often that it may be justifiable. On more than one occasion we’ve sent Toddy overnight to some public function, and found in the morning papers that he was actually there, or at something amazingly similar.”
She asks herself:
“I wonder how much one does create by brooding over it?”
Create - or just describe something that is sensed? Create - or just predict after glimpsing the future? Obtaining information via metaphysical means is relevant to the prescriptive versus descriptive issue.
Deirdre says something that I agree with:
“I wrote it all down, for the written statement invariably calms me.”
I know from experience that getting things down on paper can have a very positive, sometimes even magical-seeming, effect; according to Barbara Branden's biography, when Ayn Rand felt depressed she could counteract and dispel the negative emotions with the sense of achievement that writing gave her.
Deirdre also takes a homeopathic approach when feeling depressed and low spirited:
“And I began to read books about people whose spirits were even ‘lower’ than mine, for that is the only possible book for these occasions, and I took down Jane Eyre...“
As described in several articles, I take the opposite approach: I try to counteract negative feelings with positive ones. I have a good selection of amusing and uplifting reading material to fall back on, some of which is featured in the Defence Against the Dark Arts series of articles.
“I suppose that nothing, no emotion, no personality, ever really dies, but hangs about in the atmosphere, waiting for one to get into touch, again, through something quite extraneous – any medium. . . ? “
“I often think that perhaps there is only a limited amount of memory going about the world, and that when it wants to live again, it steals its nest, like a cuckoo.“
“I can’t explain, but one can sometimes remember things one never saw just as it’s possible to be homesick for places one’s never been to.“
All this makes me think of ghosts and spirits and the proposition that thoughtforms, or non-corporeal energy streams, are a force that can take on a life of their own and affect others; I am also reminded of what May Sinclair says in The Flaw in the Crystal about thoughts having power.
After reading The Brontës Went to Woolworths and producing some articles, I looked for information about Rachel Ferguson. There is no definitive and comprehensive biography, but some details of her life can be found online. Her autobiographical work We Were Amused, which was published shortly after her death, also has some useful information.
I was not surprised to learn that The Brontës Went to Woolworths contains much autobiographical material.
Rachel Ferguson played a very similar game with her mother and sister; the doll, the dog and many other characters were all real. The Carnes' friend Mr Justice Toddington was based on a real-life high-court judge who was an acquaintance of the Ferguson family.
The descriptions of singing, dancing, acting and journalism in the book come from personal experience too. Just like Jean Rhys and Antonia White, Rachel Ferguson studied acting at the Academy of Dramatic Art and had a short career on the stage. She later became a journalist and taught singing and dancing.
She lived in the Royal Borough of Kensington for most of her life, and considered it the only place to be. She wrote two books about her beloved borough: Passionate Kensington (1939) and Royal Borough (1950).
The various elements of interest that I have found in The Brontës Went to Woolworths make me want to investigate her other works some time.
Rachel Ferguson (1892 – 1957):
