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Tales from Portlaw
>
- No Need to Look for Love
- 'The Love Quartet' >
-
The Priest's Calling Card
>
- Chapter One - The Irish Custom
- Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
- Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
- Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
- Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
- Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
- Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
- Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
- Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
- Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
- Bigger and Better >
- The Oldest Woman in the World >
-
Sean and Sarah
>
- Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
- Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
- Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
- Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
- Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
- Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
- Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
- Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
- Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
- Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
- Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
- The Alternative Christmas Party >
-
The Life of Liam Lafferty
>
- Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
- Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
- Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
- Chapter Four : Early Manhood
- Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
- Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
- Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
- Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
- Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
- Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
- Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
-
The life and times of Joe Walsh
>
- Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
- Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
- Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
- Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
- Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
- Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
- Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
- Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
- Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
- Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
- Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
-
The Woman Who Hated Christmas
>
- Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
- Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
- Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
- Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
- Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
- Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
- Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
- Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
- Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
- Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
- Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
- Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
- Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
-
The Last Dance
>
- Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
- Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
- Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
- Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
- Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
- Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
- Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
- Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
- Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
- 'Two Sisters' >
- Fourteen Days >
-
‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’
>
- Author's Foreword
- Contents
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
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Celebrity Contacts
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Thoughts and Musings
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Bill's Personal Development
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- 'Mother /Child Bond'
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- 'Soldiering On'
- 'Romantic Holidays'
- 'On the roof'
- Always wear clean shoes
- 'Family Tree'
- The importance of poise
- 'Growing up with grandparents'
- Love & Romance >
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Chapter Fourteen: ‘The Early Years of the Two Sisters’

By the time that the two sisters, Nellie and Nora grew old enough to start attending school, their mother Mary and Doris had grown as close as any loving couple could. In fact, whenever needing to address either, the children called Mary, ‘Mother’ and Doris, ‘Auntie Doris.’ Thus, in the eyes of Nellie and Nora, they had two mother figures to care for them.
With regard to the love that dare not speak its name between Mary and Doris, unlike male homosexuals who would be imprisoned if discovered, there was no law prohibiting lesbianism, yet it was still regarded as a beastly act and highly repugnant to common decency.
With regard to the love that dare not speak its name between Mary and Doris, unlike male homosexuals who would be imprisoned if discovered, there was no law prohibiting lesbianism, yet it was still regarded as a beastly act and highly repugnant to common decency.

It is thought that the reason such a law was never enacted was because the late Queen Victoria, when presented with the legislation that made homosexuality between both sexes illegal, insisted that ‘ladies did not do such things.' It was her opinion that such things would be a physical impossibility between women. Consequently, the law forbidding lesbian activity was never legislated.
As far as wider society was concerned however, it held no such niceties for a loosening of female morality and if two women were ever suspected of having too close a physical relationship, they would be gossiped about as being ‘suspicious spinsters,’ living in sin, being perverted and practising an inferior form of sexuality. If, however, proof of such an ‘unnatural relationship’ ever became common knowledge, the offending couple would be publicly shamed and disowned as citizens of gross indecency, and considered unfit to live alongside decent folk! Upon discovery, they'd even had their heads forcibly shaved by the mob as a sign of the shame they carried and were sometimes tarred and feathered.
In truth, there had always existed lesbians since God first made woman, and for hundreds of years, love and sex between two women had been downplayed and kept invisible from the public eye. As far as Mary and Doris were concerned, it being new to them, they naturally intended to keep their personal relationship within the secrecy of their four walls. They did not intend to become the common gossip of malicious tongues or give the peers of Nellie and Nora reason to taunt the sisters.
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As far as wider society was concerned however, it held no such niceties for a loosening of female morality and if two women were ever suspected of having too close a physical relationship, they would be gossiped about as being ‘suspicious spinsters,’ living in sin, being perverted and practising an inferior form of sexuality. If, however, proof of such an ‘unnatural relationship’ ever became common knowledge, the offending couple would be publicly shamed and disowned as citizens of gross indecency, and considered unfit to live alongside decent folk! Upon discovery, they'd even had their heads forcibly shaved by the mob as a sign of the shame they carried and were sometimes tarred and feathered.
In truth, there had always existed lesbians since God first made woman, and for hundreds of years, love and sex between two women had been downplayed and kept invisible from the public eye. As far as Mary and Doris were concerned, it being new to them, they naturally intended to keep their personal relationship within the secrecy of their four walls. They did not intend to become the common gossip of malicious tongues or give the peers of Nellie and Nora reason to taunt the sisters.
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Towards this end of 1921, Doris sold her Liverpool house. She, Mary and their two girls moved inland to Haworth in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Doris had downsized from a large Victorian house to a small two bed roomed Victorian terraced cottage in West Lane, Haworth. The house was close enough to village life without being stuck bang in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Main Street.

After the sale of Doris’s larger property, the difference in house prices provided sufficient income with which to start up a little bakery business for Mary, supplying local shops from her home.
Mary had become the most proficient of bakers since arriving in England and made the best cakes, buns and jam this side of the Irish Sea. Her speciality was ‘Irish Teacake’ and gooseberry jam, which turned out to be highly sought after by the locals.
In the privacy of her own home, whenever Mary would refer to her Irish Teacake she would call it ‘Carol Law Cake’, a practice that greatly amused Doris and the children. When they pressed her for her reason of giving the teacake this secret name, the answer Mary supplied could not have been simpler to understand.
Mary said, “A woman called Carol Law first introduced the cake to me as a young woman, shortly after my mother had died. I’d never tasted its like before. I loved it so much that when Carol Law died soon after, I ‘borrowed’ her recipe from the possessions she left behind, and after tweaking it, I made the Irish Teacake my own.”
Doris had decided to return to the field of education shortly after arriving in Haworth and become a teacher in one of the local Primary Schools.
Mary had become the most proficient of bakers since arriving in England and made the best cakes, buns and jam this side of the Irish Sea. Her speciality was ‘Irish Teacake’ and gooseberry jam, which turned out to be highly sought after by the locals.
In the privacy of her own home, whenever Mary would refer to her Irish Teacake she would call it ‘Carol Law Cake’, a practice that greatly amused Doris and the children. When they pressed her for her reason of giving the teacake this secret name, the answer Mary supplied could not have been simpler to understand.
Mary said, “A woman called Carol Law first introduced the cake to me as a young woman, shortly after my mother had died. I’d never tasted its like before. I loved it so much that when Carol Law died soon after, I ‘borrowed’ her recipe from the possessions she left behind, and after tweaking it, I made the Irish Teacake my own.”
Doris had decided to return to the field of education shortly after arriving in Haworth and become a teacher in one of the local Primary Schools.

The most important reason for the family’s move from Liverpool to West Yorkshire however, was the preservation of the relationship and secret love the two women held for each other. They decided that they would draw less attention to themselves in the future, if they were to start life anew as blood sisters living together; one a mother to two daughters, the other, their aunt, and both widows to the ravages of the ‘First World War’. Both women were now soul mates and would have passed anywhere for the closest of blood sisters.
The two women knew that rural communities, though often slow in accepting newcomers into their midst, invariably accepted what they were told upon first meeting, until or unless of course, they were to learn otherwise!
Having lived most of their lives with Mary and Doris since infancy made it an easy enough lie to convince the two children that their mum and ‘Aunt Doris’ were blood sisters and that the children’s father and the late husband of ‘Aunt Doris’ had both died as serving soldiers in the war.
The two women did not feel bad about this deception to the children. They gauged that by the mere telling of an innocent lie, life for the family would proceed more smoothly and uncomfortable questions and neighbourly suspicions would be less likely to rear their ugly heads. They also withheld from the two sisters that each had been one of co-joined twins, whose twin had died before their birth. They believed that what they never knew about they could never miss; and why give them additional pain to carry through life, when such penalty could be avoided through not knowing?
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As the children progressed in age through the various landmarks of their development, it became evident to both Mary and Doris that the two girls were not like any other two sisters they had ever heard of. In short, it was as though they shared every body part and experienced identical thoughts, feelings and actions of each other at precisely the same time!
Nelly and Nora Fanning were to live more closely than any other two sisters had ever lived. They went everywhere together, did everything in unison and even spoke the same words at the same time; completing each other's sentences as though the words had been born within the same breath, despite having been voiced through two mouths simultaneously. They lived in the same house, shared the same room, slept in the same double bed and wore matching clothes.
The children attended the village Primary School and as the villagers grew to know them better over the months and years ahead, all believed the sisters to be so close that they experienced the same moment. It was as though they were in perfect communion with each other’s existence.
Nelly and Nora Fanning were to live more closely than any other two sisters had ever lived. They went everywhere together, did everything in unison and even spoke the same words at the same time; completing each other's sentences as though the words had been born within the same breath, despite having been voiced through two mouths simultaneously. They lived in the same house, shared the same room, slept in the same double bed and wore matching clothes.
The children attended the village Primary School and as the villagers grew to know them better over the months and years ahead, all believed the sisters to be so close that they experienced the same moment. It was as though they were in perfect communion with each other’s existence.

There was only one life experience they did not share, apart from their Christian names. Each sister had a different guardian angel looking over her! Every night since their birth, their guardian angels would watch over them as the two sisters slept. Each guardian angel would appear as soon as their charge had gone to sleep and would disappear each morning, a few seconds before the two sisters opened their eyes. Thus, the two sisters never knew their guardian angels stood vigil every night, yet they always sensed a presence of feeling constantly protected.
Whenever the two sisters asked questions about their birth, their mother would never tell them the full truth. She naturally wished to protect her daughters from unnecessary pain. She never told them about the premature death of their respective twins; the other half of them they would never know.
Mary had decided shortly after their birth that there was nothing to be gained by telling them that they had each been twins inside her womb, but that their respective twin had not survived the pregnancy! She did not wish them to have to grieve for a twin they never knew existed. She did not want them to feel the loss that she had felt; a loss, which would prevail throughout their lives, once informed that they were but two remaining of four.
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Whenever the two sisters asked questions about their birth, their mother would never tell them the full truth. She naturally wished to protect her daughters from unnecessary pain. She never told them about the premature death of their respective twins; the other half of them they would never know.
Mary had decided shortly after their birth that there was nothing to be gained by telling them that they had each been twins inside her womb, but that their respective twin had not survived the pregnancy! She did not wish them to have to grieve for a twin they never knew existed. She did not want them to feel the loss that she had felt; a loss, which would prevail throughout their lives, once informed that they were but two remaining of four.
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When the two sisters attended First School in Haworth, their teachers found their behaviour strange while their classmates considered it frightening and somewhat sinister. The two sisters would sit beside each other near the back of the class and whenever the teacher asked one a question, both sisters would provide the same answer at precisely the same time! It mattered not whether the answer was accurate or inaccurate; the two sisters always voiced it together!
When one had cause to smile or grimace, the face of the other sister would bear the same look simultaneously, even when each were looking in opposite directions.Without seeming to employ any effort, each sister mirrored the precise mood, look, thoughts words and actions of the other.
When one had cause to smile or grimace, the face of the other sister would bear the same look simultaneously, even when each were looking in opposite directions.Without seeming to employ any effort, each sister mirrored the precise mood, look, thoughts words and actions of the other.

The first truly inexplicable incident, which told everyone in the school that the sisters were ‘special’, was when one of the bully pupils who disliked the positive attention which the teachers and classmates usually gave the sisters, decided to embarrass the duo.
The manner in which the bully chose to do this was to divide the two sisters and to reveal them to the rest of the class as being charlatans. The bully wanted Nellie and Nora Fanning to be seen as two separate beings who produced natural and individual responses when caught off guard, yet superficially contrived ones that mimicked ‘oneness’ at other times when they wished to deceive.
The bully boy placed a dozen marbles on the floor at the desk side of Nellie to make her slip and fall when she stood up. Not only did he intend to hurt one of the sisters, but he also wanted to humiliate both of them in the process. Therefore, he told the other pupils what he planned to do and threatened them with violence if they warned the two sisters.
At the end of the lesson, Nellie and Nora got up to leave the classroom. As Nellie stepped on the small glassy marbles, she stumbled and fell to the ground, screaming in pain as she broke a leg! The bully laughed aloud seeing Nellie fall to the ground, but he and the rest of the class gasped to see Nora also fall at precisely the same moment from the other side of the desk where no marbles had been scattered. She too screamed in synchronised pain and broke her leg! When the bully looked more closely, he found that six of the twelve marbles he had placed at Nellie’s desk side had rolled across the floor and had re-positioned themselves at the side of Nora’s desk
The manner in which the bully chose to do this was to divide the two sisters and to reveal them to the rest of the class as being charlatans. The bully wanted Nellie and Nora Fanning to be seen as two separate beings who produced natural and individual responses when caught off guard, yet superficially contrived ones that mimicked ‘oneness’ at other times when they wished to deceive.
The bully boy placed a dozen marbles on the floor at the desk side of Nellie to make her slip and fall when she stood up. Not only did he intend to hurt one of the sisters, but he also wanted to humiliate both of them in the process. Therefore, he told the other pupils what he planned to do and threatened them with violence if they warned the two sisters.
At the end of the lesson, Nellie and Nora got up to leave the classroom. As Nellie stepped on the small glassy marbles, she stumbled and fell to the ground, screaming in pain as she broke a leg! The bully laughed aloud seeing Nellie fall to the ground, but he and the rest of the class gasped to see Nora also fall at precisely the same moment from the other side of the desk where no marbles had been scattered. She too screamed in synchronised pain and broke her leg! When the bully looked more closely, he found that six of the twelve marbles he had placed at Nellie’s desk side had rolled across the floor and had re-positioned themselves at the side of Nora’s desk

Both girls returned home that day with their respective left legs in a plaster cast and with the medical instruction to take four weeks off school. They had broken their legs in precisely the same place!
This list of coincidences however, did not end there. Over the years ahead, the two sisters revealed themselves to have powers of such an unusual kind that to some, they seemed magical, while to others of more suspicious mind, they appeared unnatural and sinister!
This list of coincidences however, did not end there. Over the years ahead, the two sisters revealed themselves to have powers of such an unusual kind that to some, they seemed magical, while to others of more suspicious mind, they appeared unnatural and sinister!

As to the girls themselves, they never considered their ability to do certain things that others could not do as representing anything special. It was true that they believed themselves to be ‘special,’ but did not particularly consider any of the things they found natural to do as falling into the ‘special’ category. Others often found their canny similarities a bit too sinister not to be considered within the realm of witchcraft.
A few incidents in their early lives will quickly illustrate such powers they possessed and will serve to show the nature of their instant effect and long-term impact they had on others. When the two sisters spoke outside the presence of their mother and Doris, the spoke the same words simultaneously, but when they spoke in the presence of their mother and Doris only, they would each speak the alternate words of the same sentence. Their speech would usually involve Nellie beginning the sentence and Nora ending it. In between, Nellie would speak the first two words of the sentence and Nora the next two, Nellie the next two and Nora the next two, etc.
A few incidents in their early lives will quickly illustrate such powers they possessed and will serve to show the nature of their instant effect and long-term impact they had on others. When the two sisters spoke outside the presence of their mother and Doris, the spoke the same words simultaneously, but when they spoke in the presence of their mother and Doris only, they would each speak the alternate words of the same sentence. Their speech would usually involve Nellie beginning the sentence and Nora ending it. In between, Nellie would speak the first two words of the sentence and Nora the next two, Nellie the next two and Nora the next two, etc.

Having already experienced over nine years of this verbal behaviour from the two girls since they’d both spoken their first word in the same moment of life, mum and Doris had grown to expect them to speak this way, and indeed, they would have found it strange had they not done so.
Their mother and Doris had already accepted that the two sisters were ‘special’, even long before the girls had displayed any of their other unusual behaviour and extraordinary abilities which set them apart from their peers.Their spoken words at precisely the same time indicated the presence of a telepathic form of communication which they shared.
Their mother and Doris had already accepted that the two sisters were ‘special’, even long before the girls had displayed any of their other unusual behaviour and extraordinary abilities which set them apart from their peers.Their spoken words at precisely the same time indicated the presence of a telepathic form of communication which they shared.

One night, both sisters awoke from a dream they had shared and the morning after, they told their mother and Doris what they had dreamt. At first, after hearing of their dream, neither woman could make head nor tail of its meaning.
In their shared dream, the two sisters had seen thousands of empty shops, deserted streets, abandoned buses and parked trains all over London. Everywhere in their dream they saw thousands of May Poles going around with ribbons hanging down and not one person attached to them or in sight. They saw all public transport and all manner of workers stopped and even saw upturned lorries.
“But what does it mean?” Doris asked. “Or does it not mean anything at all?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Mary replied adding, “but if both sisters dreamed the same dream, whatever it signifies, whatever message it holds, my money tells me that it means much more than nothing at all!”
Within the following week, meaning was given to the dream of the sisters. Between May 4th and May 13th 1926, ‘The General Strike’ brought the country to a standstill. During this period, millions of workers laid down their tools, all public transport stopped running and the vast majority of shops closed down in sympathy with the miner’s cause. ‘The General Strike’ was but part way through when Doris made the connection between it and the dream of the two sisters.
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In their shared dream, the two sisters had seen thousands of empty shops, deserted streets, abandoned buses and parked trains all over London. Everywhere in their dream they saw thousands of May Poles going around with ribbons hanging down and not one person attached to them or in sight. They saw all public transport and all manner of workers stopped and even saw upturned lorries.
“But what does it mean?” Doris asked. “Or does it not mean anything at all?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Mary replied adding, “but if both sisters dreamed the same dream, whatever it signifies, whatever message it holds, my money tells me that it means much more than nothing at all!”
Within the following week, meaning was given to the dream of the sisters. Between May 4th and May 13th 1926, ‘The General Strike’ brought the country to a standstill. During this period, millions of workers laid down their tools, all public transport stopped running and the vast majority of shops closed down in sympathy with the miner’s cause. ‘The General Strike’ was but part way through when Doris made the connection between it and the dream of the two sisters.
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During their tenth year of life, after visiting a wishing well near their home in Haworth, both sisters had the strangest of experiences. The well in question was almost three hundred years old, and over the centuries, it had been the source of strange and mysterious tales. The story was that during the late 1620's, in the reign of Charles 1st, the witch trials that had plagued England for the previous fifty years suddenly ended.

According to Miriam Adamson, who was aged 109 and reported to be the oldest woman in Haworth and perhaps the whole country, the very last witch to die in England was Molly Mildew. Molly had lived in an old shack somewhere out on the Haworth Moor.
She was distinguishable from all others of her sex by her witch-like looks and mannerisms; along with a blue marble she'd had inserted in her right eye after she'd lost an eye in an accident. Her eyes were brown, but as she'd been unable to find a brown glassy that would match, she inserted a blue marble instead inside her eye socket.
She was distinguishable from all others of her sex by her witch-like looks and mannerisms; along with a blue marble she'd had inserted in her right eye after she'd lost an eye in an accident. Her eyes were brown, but as she'd been unable to find a brown glassy that would match, she inserted a blue marble instead inside her eye socket.

Unlike the witches before her, who had been executed in their hundreds in England since the witch trials had begun, burning at the stake was the usual manner of execution. With Molly, she was to endure a double shock. First, they started to burn her at the stake and before the flames had got too high, they changed their mind. They then removed her from her stake which they considered as being too quick a death for Molly, and instead of being burnt by fire or drowned by water wheel dunking, they tortured her for an hour before a fishmonger who sometimes doubled as executioner, gutted Molly on a wooden slab. All this was done in public view while the cheering citizens watched the grizzly sight.

The executioner slowly slit open Molly’s stomach so she would die painfully and after cutting out her inners, he wrapped the string of intestines around her neck as if to symbolically strangle her spirit and prevent her body ever knowing eternal rest. According to parish records, after the execution, Molly’s dismembered corpse was cast down ‘Mildew’s Well’ at the side of Haworth Parish Church. The well was over one hundred and twenty feet deep.

Over the next two centuries, every woman who had a stillborn child, disposed of their babe’s body down the well into a watery grave at its bottom. Some disposed children belonged to married women while other castaways were the offspring to unmarried ones. Tales told behind the bars of taverns also spoke of some unwanted babies being cast down the well by their mothers whilst still alive; especially in cases where the child showed signs of mental deficiency or on occasions when a son was wanted, but a daughter had been born instead to too large a household.
For nigh on three centuries, ‘Mildew’s Well’ kept the darkest secrets of the most wicked acts ever committed in the Parish of Haworth. Initially, locals regarded the well as a haunted place, the roundest of tombs, where many swore they often heard the cry of a child come from deep inside, especially after a night's hard drinking in the 'The Bull' tavern. It was also rumoured that if one placed one’s nose as far inside the well as was possible and held it there for a full ten seconds, the stench of death would attack one’s nostrils and became overwhelming!
For nigh on three centuries, ‘Mildew’s Well’ kept the darkest secrets of the most wicked acts ever committed in the Parish of Haworth. Initially, locals regarded the well as a haunted place, the roundest of tombs, where many swore they often heard the cry of a child come from deep inside, especially after a night's hard drinking in the 'The Bull' tavern. It was also rumoured that if one placed one’s nose as far inside the well as was possible and held it there for a full ten seconds, the stench of death would attack one’s nostrils and became overwhelming!

Over the passage of time, ‘Mildew’s Well’, which had started life as the most sinister of places, underwent a transformation in the eyes of Haworth villagers. During the late 19th century, after the three Bronte Sisters had placed Haworth on the map, making it a tourist place for literary pilgrims of the world to visit, 'Mildew's Well' gradually lost its old history and took on a new one.
In order to attract a greater number of visitors to the village, along with the increased custom they brought with them, all past and sinister history of the well was conveniently forgotten from village memory. Even the Parish records of the church that recorded births and deaths since the days of Oliver Cromwell, mysteriously vanished from public eye, with the remaining history of the well in church grounds re-written. Instead of remaining a well of despair, doom and death, villagers started to promote ‘Mildew’s Well’ as being a well of hope; a wishing well that brought good luck to all who looked into it and received its message with good heart!
Those older villagers, who had heard different tales in their youth about the well of death, were bribed to keep quiet by a publican promise of one free pint per week, along with providing a slate for their custom.
In order to attract a greater number of visitors to the village, along with the increased custom they brought with them, all past and sinister history of the well was conveniently forgotten from village memory. Even the Parish records of the church that recorded births and deaths since the days of Oliver Cromwell, mysteriously vanished from public eye, with the remaining history of the well in church grounds re-written. Instead of remaining a well of despair, doom and death, villagers started to promote ‘Mildew’s Well’ as being a well of hope; a wishing well that brought good luck to all who looked into it and received its message with good heart!
Those older villagers, who had heard different tales in their youth about the well of death, were bribed to keep quiet by a publican promise of one free pint per week, along with providing a slate for their custom.

It was rumoured that if a person looked down the well and remained looking down it for a full ten seconds, they would hear a voice from one of their ancestors. And if not their ancestors, they might hear the voice of a dead infant or child who'd been cast down centuries earlier.
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At ten years of age, the two sisters followed the village ritual of looking down the wishing well; one positioned at each side of the well. When they next lifted their heads, their faces shone brightly, very much as the faces of angels are supposed to shine after receiving a heavenly revelation. Each sister had heard a voice from the well. It was a voice from their past, conveying an important message. The voice each sister heard was a voice from a different source, though they sounded the same, had they been heard together.
The voice provided both sisters with identical tasks to carry out before sleeping that day and the voice instructed each sister not to tell any other; including their sister. While finding this instruction to exclude their sister, with whom all secrets before had always been shared, very strange indeed, both Nellie and Nora did precisely as their voice from the well had commanded them
The voice provided both sisters with identical tasks to carry out before sleeping that day and the voice instructed each sister not to tell any other; including their sister. While finding this instruction to exclude their sister, with whom all secrets before had always been shared, very strange indeed, both Nellie and Nora did precisely as their voice from the well had commanded them

The voice instructed them to write each other a letter and to leave the letter sealed and unopened until the dawn of their fortieth birthday. Both sisters carried out the instructions as specified by their voice of the wishing well and kept their sealed letters safely bound until the due date arrived.

When the sisters were aged twelve, a horse-drawn runaway cart ran over a black cat in Main Street, in the centre of Haworth Village. The poor creature’s cries of pain were pitiful to the ears of all onlookers as the runaway horse and cart crushed the cat beneath its heavy metal-rimmed cartwheels. The two sisters heard the whelps of the crushed creature and approached it. The cat had been crushed so badly that its head was now misshapen. The two sisters each laid a hand of compassion on the bleeding cat as it slumped close to death, its breathing on the brink of extinction.
One minute later, the cat moved. It had miraculously survived its near death experience. It suddenly jumped up and sprightly ran away from the scene of the accident, up the nearby steps at the side of ‘The Bull’ tavern, towards the church graveyard off Main Street.
One minute later, the cat moved. It had miraculously survived its near death experience. It suddenly jumped up and sprightly ran away from the scene of the accident, up the nearby steps at the side of ‘The Bull’ tavern, towards the church graveyard off Main Street.

The villagers of Haworth who named it ‘Lucky’, later adopted the black cat and would feed it daily. The cat itself became a landmark as it increased in size with all the village treats it received. Lucky lived in the church graveyard until the end of its days. Ever since that day, a black cat (presumably a descendant of Lucky's), has lived in the Parish Church graveyard, growing exceedingly fat on the amount of daily tit bits handed to it by Haworth residents!
As Mary saw all this, her mind went back to the runaway horse and cart that had collided with her own father many years ago, and which had rendered him a virtual cripple. She silently thought at the time of seeing the miraculous resurrection of the cat, ’If only I’d had the benefit of my daughters’ healing hands then!”
As Mary saw all this, her mind went back to the runaway horse and cart that had collided with her own father many years ago, and which had rendered him a virtual cripple. She silently thought at the time of seeing the miraculous resurrection of the cat, ’If only I’d had the benefit of my daughters’ healing hands then!”