Brontë blunder leaves business red faced

The front cover of the latest Thomson guide spells Haworth, the home of the legendary Brontës, as Howarth.

About 200,000 copies of the flawed directory have been distributed across the district.

Mike Hutchinson, of Haworth Village Association, has described the error as “sheer stupidity. Somebody needs their knuckles rapping. It should never have happened.

“The problem is they won’t reprint it so it will be out there perpetuating the error for 12 months.”

Haworth Parish Council chairman, Coun John Huxley said: “It’s an irritation but not disastrous. It happens quite frequently.

“I think it would be too much to ask to recall the copies and do it again, especially when considering the environmental impact of reprinting the whole run.”

Bradford councillor Glen Miller (Con, Worth Valley) described the error as “laughable.”

“It’s bad that a directory can’t spell the name of a town it is trying to drum up business from. I don’t think there’s an excuse for it from a professional organisation like that. It should get it right.”

A spokesman for Thomson said the company was aware of the error and several members of the public had been in contact about the mistake. The company promised not to get it wrong again.