Joana Starnes

I do wish this year was one when we celebrate the birth of this remarkable lady, rather than a year when we commemorate her passing. Nevertheless, it’s wonderful to see her in the limelight for whatever reason, see her featuring on national news, on the new banknote, and also have adaptations and Regency documentaries broadcast in great number, which hasn’t happened over the last few years, and isn’t likely to happen again for a fair while. Besides, it’s very good to remember that when we gathered in Winchester, it wasn’t just so that we could witness a solemn event, but also to meet up with like-minded people, for whom Jane is a constant presence, and her world a way of life.

I think that as well as a brilliant body of work, Jane Austen’s great legacy to the world is this wonderful ability to bring people together.

This ability was celebrated in My Friend Jane, a BBC programme about some of us who find great pleasure in getting together, in talking about Jane Austen’s novels and her brilliant characters, in playing dress-up and partying as they might have done in 1809. The programme was broadcast on BBC 1 on 17 July 2017, and is currently on BBC iPlayer.

I wish all of us who love Jane Austen could have met in Winchester this week to celebrate this wonderful lady who has given us so much joy.

Over the years, I tried to visit as many places connected to Jane Austen as possible, but for quite some time I stayed away from Winchester, not really wishing to see the place where her journey ended far too soon. I did get over that particular reluctance some ten or twelve years ago, and I’m glad I did. Winchester is a glorious place. But I still approached it with the old reluctance on the day of the commemoration. Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. Despite the solemnity of the event, it was not a time of sadness, but a celebration of Jane Austen’s life and legacy.

The cathedral was full to capacity and beautifully adorned, the service was heartfelt and warm, and the choice to include one of Jane Austen’s own prayers was a wonderful touch and deeply moving. If you’ve read them before, you already know – if not, you can easily imagine – that there are no flourishes in them, no wordy embellishments, just the warmth and common sense we find in everything she wrote. Which is probably why her prayer spoke directly to the soul when she gave thanks for all blessings, for ‘all hours of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment’ and prayed for mercy to all mankind and ‘the safety and welfare of family and friends, wheresoever dispersed.’

Just as I had hoped, a great number of friends were gathered there, and it was such a great joy to share this moment with them, and then see them again in Chawton on the following day.

I only wish other dear friends could have been there too, but I know that even if they couldn’t be there in person, a little bit of their heart and soul is always in Chawton.

We had all sorts of plans for the rest of the day, like stopping in tranquil Steventon where Jane Austen’s earliest novels took shape, and then finish the day with a pyjama party and some Darcy champagne (yes, I had to stock up on that when I saw it in the shops!). But I simply couldn’t turn down the awesome opportunity of appearing on BBC Breakfast News on the following morning along with my friend Sophie Andrews, Austen blogger at Laughing with Lizzie, and Zack MacLeod Pinsent, the fascinating Regency tailor featured on My Friend Jane. So there we were, Sophie and I, hopping on a train to Manchester at incredibly short notice, so that we could be there, ready and waiting, on the following morning.

It was an absolutely surreal experience to arrive in the studios (not quite at the crack of dawn, but close enough), be treated to a session of professional styling and find ourselves on the very famous couch, talking to Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty about how Jane Austen and her world became a way of life for us.

If the vast majority of people are incredulous, bemused or amused about our choices and her overwhelming influence on us and what we do, Janeites need no explanations. They understand what makes us tick, because the same great lady influences them too.

So, just as most of us have always wished, this isn’t just the year when we commemorate her passing, but a time to remember that her legacy has endured for 200 hundred years, that her work is not merely relevant to us today, but celebrated more than it has ever been, and hopefully it will still be celebrated for many years to come.

What she would have made of it all, we’ll never know. Maybe she, too, would have been a little amused, bemused or incredulous. But I dearly hope she would have also been pleased.