You Shall Find Me a Grave Woman...

There's a writer whose Substack I like. Ella Risbridger. She writes about food, but alongside that, all of life. Her writing is phenomenal and I treat her weekly newsletters like a cosy catchup with a friend. She's younger than me and currently living with the unpredictability of the rental market. A couple of months ago, she had to relocate again. This was not the first time since I've been reading her stuff. Someone my age and with my privilege simply cannot imagine this. Back in the day, it was unfathomable that a landlord could boot me out of my home for no reason. But I digress. This post is not about the volatility of the rental market. 

The pure vibes of reading Ella
Risbridger's Substack.

Looking for the silver lining, Ella noted that relocating back to an area she'd previously lived, meant being close to one of her favourite graveyards again. This made me think. Do people have favourite graveyards? Is this a thing? And then the next obvious thought occurred. Do I have a favourite graveyard? How many do I even know?

I should explain my basic views on graves. You were wondering, right? The thing is, I never feel compelled to visit them. I have two grandmothers with gravestones. I've got two grandfathers with gravestones too, but they died before I was born. My grandmothers, on the other hand, were part of my life. I attended their funerals at age fourteen and thirty-four respectively. Since then, I've visited their graves... rarely. For some people, this is an important part of their grief and healing. They visit graves regularly, to tend them and feel a connection with their loved one. This is not my experience. People I've lost are in my head and my heart; the grave feels almost administrative. I enjoy driving past their old homes, looking at photos, and reminiscing over funny memories. But their graves? Nah. Look, we're all different and wouldn't it be dull if we were the same, yeah? Yeah.

However - yes, there's a however - I've also had top fun in graveyards. Yeah! For example, me, my sister, and brother once spent a sunny afternoon searching for our paternal grandfather('s grave.) We had the basic location from my dad, and we spread out, scanning the names until we found it. When my sister gave the shout that she'd found Alf Bond, it was quite the moment!

I think the difference with Alf, for example, is that I consider him more of a historical figure. A historical figure with a personal link who provided me with genes, but still from long ago. I find those sorts of graves fascinating. The dates, the society they would have experienced, the old-fashioned names, the font, the design... it's such a source of information. The historian inside me gets a real thrill.

The historian inside me has had a real thrill recently. My cousin is currently visiting from Australia. It's her first time back in the UK since 1978 and so along with catching up with the alive relatives, we're tracking down some of our deceased ones too. And when I say tracking down, I mean it. 'I think she's in a cemetery somewhere in Litherland,' was one of the nuggets we've had to work with to find a long-dead great aunt. It might not have been part of my original June plans, but the grave visits we've done recently have been really interesting.

It does raise a question, though. When does a lost loved one become a historical figure? Is there a specific period of time that must elapse before the historian takes over from the griever? The long-dead great aunt in Litherland, died when I was three. I have vague snapshot memories of her and I've heard stories told by others. But looking for her grave was like a fun mystery to solve. I was a detective!

Nothing is ever clear cut, of course. There are no right answers. I started to think about this a few months ago. I had an afternoon to kill in London. It was a sunny day, and I fancied a walk. Next thing you know, I'm googling Highgate Cemetery, and working out the Tube route to get there. All I knew about the place was, it's where Karl Marx is buried and it's full of famous people. One tube journey, bus ride, and walk through the park later, and I arrived.

Touristy? Well yeah. You pay £10 to get in, and you're provided with a map of the pathways, along with the famous graves that are dotted throughout. There was even a cafe by the ticket kiosk. But this was not your usual tourist vibe. (It's run by a charity, rather than being a money-making attraction.) Everyone was suitably reverent. The chirping birds in the trees were the loudest thing about the place. The effect of the tree lined paths, dappled sun, and birdsong, provided a serene sense of peace.

I could have stayed there hours. As it was, I strolled for two. Scanning the leaflet, I'd not heard of many of the people. A short bio was provided for each name mentioned and reflected the eclectic nature of the residents. Scientists, writers, politicians, local bigwigs and entrepreneurs... it was a Who's Who of Highgate locals that have made their mark. There were plenty of graves not listed in the leaflet too. Not being listed didn't mean they'd had a failed life. Far from it. They just weren't famous famous. This is still a working cemetery and the final resting place of locals today. I mused on the nature of death as a great leveller as I walked the path that would lead me to Christina Rossetti. 

And that's when I saw it. A flat, clean, gravestone. Not moss-covered and faded like ones around it. It was a family plot, with three grey stones. The one on the right belonged to Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. I felt the breath go from out of me. It was the birthname of George Michael. 

He was listed in the brochure of course, but my eyes had skipped over Michael to find surnames that jumped out more readily. (Rossetti for instance.) Standing at the grave of my childhood hero was... surreal. It no longer felt historical. It felt moving. I'm not daft enough to consider myself a real mourner. I didn't know him in real life and he wasn't my family. But this was much more personal than hunting down clues or scanning rows of graves to find a long departed relative I barely remembered. It was something in between. 

The grave of the
Rossetti family.

I took a photo. It was permitted as long as it was for personal use. I posted it in a photo dump on Insta but it feels icky here. Not sure why. But Christina Rossetti? Yeah, I've no problem with that. She's in the 'historical figures' section of my brain. I managed to carry on walking to find her, along with George Eliot - another writer whose work I've enjoyed. I stood at their final resting places and thought, 'Wow, I've studied your work. Isn't it mad you wrote it so long ago.' Then I moved on. It was harder to move away from George Michael. I looped back on myself so I could have another few minutes at his headstone. It felt weird and numb and beautiful. Not historical in the slightest, and much more meaningful than admin. Strange.

It seems some graves do hold meaning for me. There's a new category. As well as 'Purely Admin' because I knew the person for real, and 'Historical Marker' of someone I've known in name only, there's a third section. 'Non-Historical People Whose Work and Life Has Made My Own Better and Who Should Not Have Died So Young.' It might be niche but it's still a category.

Have a lovely week, folks.