Camilla visit kick-starts Worth Valley 50th anniversary year

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THE Duchess of Cornwall gave an early start to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway’s 50th anniversary celebrations when she took a trip in a special train over part of the line.

Camilla rode in the Old Gentleman’s Carriage as featured in the 1970 EMI big-screen version of The Railway Children.

Her visit to the Worth Valley on Friday, February 16, also formed part of the celebrations for the bicentenary of the birth of Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë.

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The Duchess of Cornwall chats with the footplate crew of Taff Vale Railway O2 0-6-2T No. 85. KWVR

This year also marks the 90th anniversary of the museum in Haworth Parsonage, the house where the Brontë sisters spent most of their lives.

Camilla was taken on a guided tour through the parsonage by principal curator Ann Dinsdale, and shown its greatest treasures.

Camilla met artist Clare Twomey, the mastermind behind the Wuthering Heights – A Manuscript project, which has produced a new version of Emily Brontë’s long-lost manuscript by copying it out one line at a time. She said: “I had better make sure this is my best handwriting. I think that tailed off a bit towards the end, sorry.”

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More than 10,000 visitors have taken part in the project, and Camilla wrote the last line into the newly-created document. She also met schoolchildren who had taken part in a creative writing competition held by the museum.

From the parsonage, Camilla rode by vintage bus to Haworth station, where she was introduced by KWVR volunteers and shown locomotive restorations in progress.

Read more in Issue 239 of HR – on sale now!

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