A blog-post about the interconnectedness between a pair of ‘Bonnets’, a pair of Antlers, a pair of Yafflers, a pair of Finders, a pair of Keepers, a pair of Truth-Seekers. . .

In April 2016, I found my first ever ‘Shed’ —— followed swiftly in July that same year, by the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ pencil drawing; the two things became indivisible because. . .

In early March 2017, I made contact with Professor Christopher Heywood —— wherein I also got to see, hold and discuss the original ‘Bonnet Portrait’ that I’d seen and read about online in 2013; it was sold at auction in 2011 to a private buyer. . .

And so it is, that Our six-sided ‘circle’ is complete —— as represented by the inner shape formed by this pair of interlocking Sheds, naturally cast by a wild Red Deer stag nearly five years ago but only reunited on Thursday 18th March 2021. . .

After nearly five years apart, I’ve finally reunited right-side with left again. The long ‘lost’ Shed was there all along —— about a half-a-mile apart from where the right-side was found. A few feet either way and a shed antler is easily overlooked; absorbed in a mass of snapped twigs and fallen branches that morph into a thousand ‘antlers’ in the expectant eyes of a Shed-Hunter. Sniffing out a cast antler in a forest environment is almost an ‘impossible’ mission —— especially if like me one doesn’t keep a dog. That said, a helpful wild Raven and a murmuration of starlings came to my assistance… 

I love that the left side had lain totally undisturbed where it fell —— apart that is from some occasional gnawing by the wild creatures of the forest; foxes, badgers, mice, squirrels —— deer, all enjoy a nibble on a freshly shed ‘bone’, which in essence is what a Shed is, it’s Nature’s own calcium supplement. It’s underside has retained its natural dark-brown hue from a life spent in an arboreal habitat, out of direct sunlight —— whilst the side that was facing upwards to the elements has miraculously grown ‘velvet’ again —— only of the Moss variety. I have left the Moss be —— as I like the earthiness of it and ‘as found’ look. . .

The number of points on a stag’s ‘crown’ or ‘cup’ increase and become more impressive with each yearly regrowth until eventually a stag is deemed passed its prime or ‘going back’ —— which roughly occurs around seven to eight years of age. Most managed Red Deer Stags don’t get the chance to live out life to its natural limit, which is about 13 to 15 years, because they are humanely culled before old age sets in. Or sadly, they are poached and butchered for their majestic heads when still in their prime. Whereas the mature large-hearted stag that shed these big beauties for me to find and reunite, has lived its entire life running wild and largely unseen in a secretive, densely forested habitat —— which makes their reunion all the more miraculous. . .

I’ve always been a bit of a ‘hunter’ gatherer type —— particularly hunting down more formal wall art to ‘paper’ the walls of my home —— as in affordable drawings, paintings and engravings collected over several decades, that are mostly Victorian in origin. So it followed that when I found my first big Shed in 2016, I developed a sudden need to acquire an artist’s impression of a suitably magnificent Red Deer stag to celebrate my Shed Hunting success. . .

It’s my experience that eBay is a good hunting ground for tracking and finding ‘sleepers’. . .

“A sleeper is an object that is undervalued at the time it is offered for sale. Experts that are on the look-out for sleepers at auction are sometimes called sleeper spotters. While some sleepers pass through auctions unnoticed, others are spotted by two or more parties and may make a spectacular price over estimate.”

Antiques Trade Gazette

So I put ‘Red Deer Drawing’ into eBay’s search engine and began my search. . .

Almost immediately, I stumbled upon a suitably fitting picture of an impressive stag —— the very thing I thought I was looking for! It’s now long since sold by ‘Somerset and Wood’ —— but alas not to me!

I didn’t buy it because out the corner of my eye on screen, my attention was suddenly grabbed by an icon-sized image of a portrait ‘type’ that I was pretty certain I recognised from some place before. . .

Without hesitation, I bought the “Lady With Bonnet” —— particularly as it had two watchers! It wasn’t expensive —— so I did my research after clicking the ‘Buy It Now’ button!

Immediately the deal was done, I put “Lady With Bonnet” (as per the eBay listing header) into Google’s search engine —— and low and behold, there appeared onscreen, an image of the very same painting I’d previously read about in 2013, in an online, 2011 edition of the ‘Keighley News’. I knew I’d seen the portrait ‘type’ before in the course of some earlier 2013 research of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ —— another ‘Brontë’ acquisition whose full story can be read HERE.

The Google search result was from this newspaper article in the ‘Keighley News’ about the sale of the very painting (seen here temporarily removed from its ornate ‘Slater Bower of Sheffield’ frame) on the left of the ‘Bonnet’ drawing…Little did I realise way back in July 2016 —— that finding a huge cast Red Deer Antler in a high-hedged wood, would take me on another Quest; a Quest that seeks to discover the Truth about ‘The ‘Lost’ Portrait of Emily Brontë’.

In March 2017, I read an online abstract from a paper by Professor Christopher Heywood about the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ painting, published in ‘Brontë Studies’ – the Brontë Society’s own academic journal; curious and wanting to know more, I wrote to its brilliant author. 

‘Coincidentally‘, ‘Heywood’ means a ‘wood surrounded by a hedge’. Yes! I research all possible vibrations!

In so many ways, searching for the Truth about the ‘Bonnet(s)’ is no different to searching for a great ‘lost’ Shed —— except I haven’t been scratched to pieces and bitten by innumerable ticks in search of ‘Bonnets’! That said, I do recall meeting a rather pricklesome expert! Persistence and perseverance in the field is what pays dividends in the end —— the Truth is out there —— or in there in the case of the ‘Bonnet’ drawing; I believe it, I know it, I sixth sense it! Indeed, the Truth is in the very artworks themselves —— in the form of hundreds of ‘hidden’ numbers that the Brontes used as a technique for shading —— as can be detected in the left nostril of the ‘Bonnet’ watercolour, a portrait that I believe is by Branwell Brontë and should be secured for the National Collection —— should it come up for auction again. . .

Meeting Professor Christopher Heywood in the flesh for the first time in April 2017 —— I remember thinking there was something as otherworldly about him as there was worldly; an exceedingly well-travelled, old-school academic —— fluent in several languages, who also believed in Magick —— and faeries —— and read palms as well as books. . .

That first meeting only confirmed what I’d already deduced from our first month’s worth of daily e-correspondence; that there was nothing remotely stuffy about this Professor of Literature / Wizard in a flat cap! As he gently took ahold of my palm in his —— and began to read my fortune! It was like a reenactment of this famous scene in ‘Jane Eyre’ —— only I didn’t know Charlotte Brontë’s story line in those formative days of our friendship. . . 

The above photograph of us together remains my firm favourite because so many of the happenstances in the world of ‘Yaffle A’ and ‘Yaffle B’ have been serendipitous —— whilst at the ‘same time’ looking back to at least 2016, I have this funny feeling that fate has played its hand in it all. Especially in light of a new discovery made on Friday, 19th March 2021 —— that of Charlotte Brontë’s tiny signature ‘C BRONTË’ in the pupil of the right eye of the pencil portrait. . .

Even allowing for all the variables in LIFE —— it definitely feels like there’s an order to how the secrets of the ‘lost’ portrait of Emily Brontë by Charlotte have revealed themselves —— because there is no IF about my latest ‘unearthing’; the pencil version of the ‘Bonnet Portait’ is deliberately signed in typical Charlotte Brontë micro-script, ‘C BRONTË’.

Prof. Christopher Heywood and I, have tried to bring our pair of ‘Bonnet Portraits’ to the attention of the Brontë Society —— who have rejected both portraits at every given opportunity. . . However, despite the numerous put downs of our beloved pair of ‘Bonnets’ —— there’s an even more determined ‘third party’ that’s still very much attached to the pencil portrait. It’s an entity that’s given power to this Yaffle’s elbow; I call ‘It’ —— ‘Charlotte’. . .

. . .because the pencil version of the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ is quite deliberately signed, indeed it is very deliberately signed in uppercase; there’s only one ‘C BRONTË’ responsible for such a minuscule, deliberate signature as this is. . .My latest related acquisition —— on Monday, 22nd March 2021; was a brand new, shiny, pearlised-white Android smartphone, a Samsung A51! For at least the past six months, my hand-me-down iPhone 6S (kindly given to me by my eldest son two years ago) has been seriously on the blink, then it virtually died just over two months ago! With the country in Lockdown, I saw no need to immediately replace my old device for a new one, as I wasn’t going anywhere! My main reason for owning a mobile phone is in case I breakdown on my 36 mile round journey to work and back; there’s no point in me having a ‘Gold’ membership breakdown card for the AA —— if one can’t call them in an emergency! Being placed on Furlough again meant a new phone could wait; being at home has done me good, indeed it’s been a time to refocus in more ways than one!

It’s also been a time of bereavement; Professor Christopher Heywood sadly passed away on the 18th February 2021. . .

So, in preparation for returning to near normal life post Lockdown on April 12th —— I’m back in the world of mobile communication again, but it’s having a new camera that’s thrilled me!

Having switched from an old, totally defunct Apple device to a shiny new Android one, I’m getting to grips with the differences; namely a macro lens being my new handset’s best additional feature! So there was no better or more fitting subject to test it on than the right-eye pupil of the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ pencil drawing —— that I’ve always thought contains minuscule writing across it, only what do the ‘three lines’ actually say?Well, I’m one-hundred percent confident that thanks to my new A51’s macro lens and a god-given slant of light —— that bottom-right it reads ‘C BRONTË’ (the artist’s —— Charlotte Brontë’s teeny-weeny signature) —— whilst what I originally identified as three lines of tiny ‘unreadable’ micro-script is actually the subject’s initials, ‘EJB’ for Emily Jane Brontë. In the image directly below —— it’s even possible to see how ‘EJB’ is scored into the paper. . .

There is another version of the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ that I attribute to the hand of Charlotte Brontë because it has the same trait(s). . .

This post is dedicated to the memory of Professor Christopher Heywood, who really is quite the most wizard individual that I have ever met —— and all because I found a huge shed antler in a high-hedged wood in 2016. Without finding the ‘Shed’ —— I wouldn’t have found (without looking) the ‘lost’ portrait of Emily Brontë —— drawn and signed by sister, Charlotte. And therein, I would never have got to know the person I had the privilege to call, ‘Yaffle B’/’Yaffo’/’Mr. Woodpecker’ —— but most of all, Dear Christopher,; his “haystack” of emails are treasure to me now.

Truth really is stranger than fiction; something that I think Professor of Literature, Christopher Heywood —— and Novelist, Charlotte Brontë —— indeed ALL of the Brontës, would agree with; it’s certainly been my experience.🦌

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