Wuthering Heights: Why director Emerald Fennell can't dish up the same old telling of Wuthering Heights - Christa Ackroyd

As a journalist often helping others take their first steps into a profession I love it is the first thing I teach. No matter how accurate your quotes, no matter how inspiring the story you may write, the most important thing to get right is a person’s name.

That may seem pretty obvious but even the most common name needs checking. Get it wrong and the person who has given you their time and told their story is undermined, left feeling inconsequential.

When I was very young I did not like the name Christa. It was too different. It stood out when all I wanted to do was blend in. Coupled with the fact my surname was and still is of course Ackroyd it meant that unless there was, say, an Abbot in class, which there never was, I was always first alphabetically on the register.

Which in turn meant each new school year with each new teacher the conversation would go something like this. ‘Christa .. that’s an unusual name. Is it short for Christabel’. ‘Er no’, was my reply.

Oh how I longed to be normal, or at least with a normal name. Normal I will never be. The truth is my name is very important. As is everyone’s of course. But for me doubly so. I was not given that name at birth.

Indeed on my original birth certificate there is another name. And I was 40 when I learned what that was. I like the name Vivienne. But it’s not me. And I only discovered it after my father died.

For someone supposed to ask questions I never did. I knew I was adopted. I knew my father had chosen the name Christa. But as it was he and my mother who made me who I am, my earlier name, indeed my earlier life, was and remains inconsequential.

And it was my father who insisted I never shorten the one he had given me at just ten days old, that I would never become a Chris or a Chrissy because it was not the name he had carefully chosen for me. It was his gift to a daughter he never thought he would have.

And so I love it still. And always spell it out and smile at the importance he gave it, and so gave to me.

Back to the Brontës. No matter that when their father left Ireland to study at Cambridge he left a Brunty.

No matter that there are theories about why he should change his name which range from the fact his broad Irish accent meant it was written as Bronte (without the dots) by mistake or that it was simply snobbery.

Or that he changed the name as that was Nelson’s chosen title. It was the name he passed onto his children. When he added the dots known as diaereses (who knew) .. no one knows. Possible to show that the ‘e’ is pronounced. No matter. It is the name his children bore.

And for more than 80 years it has been wrong. The plaque in question lies among the great and famous in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. There is no doubt Charlotte in particular would have been thrilled to have been commemorated right alongside Shakespeare.

She would have been less pleased that the diaereses were missing. She was a stickler for correctness was our Charlotte.

Of course she and her sisters had spent their writing years hiding behind the pseudonym Bell. Not because they were ashamed of who they were, quite the opposite.

But because they wanted to disguise their gender, knowing as Charlotte put it that as women they would meet prejudice and judgement.

And of course she was absolutely correct. When their true identity was revealed that is exactly what happened. Emily took her new found fame badly. Anne never lived long enough to enjoy it.

And it was Charlotte alone that was left unveiled to be feted in society as the author of Jane Eyre. The name Brontë died with her and her siblings.

All the more important that Yorkshire author and scholar Sharon Wright brought the misspelling to the attention of the Abbey and that they corrected it last week.

Now to other Brontë related matters that are potentially not so uplifting. Hollywood is (again) getting its hands on my favourite book of all time Wuthering Heights. No bad thing in theory.

Too often the story has been portrayed as a hopeless love story, when indeed it is a story of class, or rootlessness and of prejudice.

Too often the story ends with the death of its wayward heroine Catherine when that is only half the tale. But I do not await Hollywood’s latest blockbusting plans with much hope.

The female lead Margot Robbie is statuesque, blonde, Australian and 34. Catherine Earnshaw is very much a native of the West Riding, brown haired and died aged 18 or so. The male lead will be played by Jacob Elordi (Saltburn) who might be the right age (Heathcliff was around 40 when he died) but he is white and again Australian.

Heathcliff was almost certainly of mixed ethnicity and of unknown heritage. And that is the whole point of the story. Which appears to have been missed.

I know both are established actors. I know both will be called upon to ‘act’ but with the best will in the world they have been chosen to add a little sparkle to a story which is anything other than sparkly. I also know I will watch the film when it comes out.

But please, I beg Hollywood and the film’s producer Emerald Fennell not to dish up the same old telling. A love story it is not and never was. And I am dreading even more the possibility of mock Yorkshire accents full of dropped vowels and added t’s.

Wuthering Heights, like it’s writer, was born out of Yorkshire. It is as guttural as the accent of its servant inhabitant Joseph. It is as dark as the skin of its main character, as dank as the rain that lashes the moors. It must not be shiny and bright.

Only then will Emily Brontë’s true genius shine through as rugged as the “eternal rocks beneath “ as Cathy describes her love for Heathcliff.

I await the production with interest, but with some trepidation. I would be happier if it were rooted as far away from Hollywood as it could be. If it were placed in the genius hands of Sally Wainwright I would know it would work.

Her one hour drama To Walk Invisible, hit the spot perfectly. Because it was far from perfect. Their clothes were stained at their hems, the streets of Haworth were muddied and the shop windows dirtied. Whether we will get the same from Hollywood remains to be seen.

Until then I will just have to rejoice that two little dots at least restore some part of their legacy for all to see. That for now will do nicely.