Steampunk festival held in Bronte's Haworth

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50027625

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Hundreds of steampunks have descended on the Pennine village of Haworth for a festival dedicated to the genre.

The event features parades, fashion shows, music and burlesque acts.

Tea duelling - who can keep a dunked biscuit intact for the longest - is another highlight and in keeping with the movement's courteous ethos.

Steampunk began as a sub-genre of science fiction which imagines a future powered by steam and clockwork but from a Victorian perspective.

The two-day event also included photography shoots and performances from burlesque star Velma Von Bon Bon and music from Mr B - The Gentleman Rhymer.

Organisers said Haworth, home to the Bronte sisters, provided the perfect setting for a steampunk event because of its cobbled streets and Victorian aesthetic and buildings.

Michael Young, one of the organisers, said it was a great atmosphere and one of his favourite events was the tea duelling discipline, which "takes real skill" and can only be played with malted milk biscuits.

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The genre draws on the influences of sci-fi novelists HG Wells and Jules Verne.

According to one participant, Alan Chapman, steampunk imagines "the future from a Victorian perspective", where machinery "would be clockwork or steam-powered".

Over the years it has evolved into a lifestyle movement. Mr Chapman's wife Jackie said she enjoyed the social side of it - "getting dressed up and becoming a different person."

Proceeds from the event are being donated to the Sue Ryder Manorlands hospice in Oxenhope.

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