Cemeteries
- Maxine Callow
- Sep 5
- 4 min read
I’m a bit of cemetery fiend. There, I’ve said it. I love a good cemetery and always have. As a teacher, I’ve taken pupils on trips to cemeteries, I’ve picnicked in them and, whenever we go away, we generally visit a cemetery.
One of my earliest adventures when moving to Zambia in 2013 was to find a local cemetery and go to visit it. I believe you can learn a great deal about a culture when you see how they bury their dead.
Whilst in Zambia, I was privileged to experience a funeral, as Tom’s wife. As Head of Security, one of his Mine Police passed away and he was asked to speak at the funeral. It was a very different, but equally structured procedure and I will remember it always. The family, the friends, the neighbours, the employer and the church all had formal roles to play. The physical act of burying was carried out by the men as part of the procedure and the ladies from the church sang a beautiful song as they patted the mound of earth. Then, in strict order of importance, everyone in procession stood a single flower into the mound.
For quite a few years we attended Fairport Conventions Cropredy Festival near Banbury in Oxfordshire. The festival takes over the whole village and many an afternoon was spent sprawled in the graveyard listening to the live music from the pub over the road, watching the Morris perform, chatting and playing games. My godson, Moky, was very young when we started going and, as with all the children, was instructed not to walk on the graves out of respect to the dead. He coined the phrase, ‘deaders’. No prizes for working out how Deaders got his name.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is often claimed to have stated, "The marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten." Whilst the quote is misattributed, the sentiment generally rings true in my experience. Most graves follow the fashion of the day, generally based on local culture and religious traditions. For me, it is those that stand out as different that make the walking around graveyards appealing.
Graves in Boston I noted generally had the skull and crossbones on them. It all looked a tad pirate-ish, but really it was just a Puritan tradition known as the death’s head. Seaside graves generally have sailors lost at sea. Zambian graves were formal and religious with only those with money having tombstones.
On a recent trip to France, we stayed in a rural village with a graveyard at the end of the garden. The mausoleums were grand and the tombstones interesting, being given the family name as a highlight. Notable for me were the sustainability and environmental aspects to adornments for the graves. Clear rules were in place as to what could and could not be left on the tombs. Notably, many graves had ceramic flowers atop. They were beautiful.
In the UK, one of the most notable cemeteries is Highgate in London. I recently visited with friends, and we had a very interesting tour. It’s a higgledy-piggledy place on a hill with some incredibly grand graves, both of the famous and the unknown. The catacombs were very interesting, especially the tales of how the grave robbers had looted them when Highgate was left unsupervised in the middle of the last century. It’s now possible to see inside some of the Victorian lead lined coffins which is a tad earie.
At Highgate, we saw most of the famous graves and many interesting and imaginative epitaphs to the dearly departed. London has seven notable cemeteries. I’d like to visit the others.
I have a friend, Paul, a fellow taphophile who shares my love of cemeteries, tombs, vaults and mausoleums. He’s a genealogist, so comes at it from many years trawling for the dead to put into family trees. He’s a very knowledgeable and interesting person to know. He’s also great for a romp around a graveyard exploring the exceptional and noting the interesting.
How does this all relate to my ceramics MA? Tenuously. Deaders is obviously dead, but that isn’t especially relevant. My love of cemeteries is a longstanding part of my interests and informs my overall love of Victoriana. The beautiful metalwork and intricate stonemasonry provide glorious aesthetics. The lengthy epitaphs and knowledge gleaned from the gravestones are emotive. The landscaping and peacefulness to be found are captivating. The history is exposed and is there first hand. An afternoon spent in a cemetery is a very peaceful, emotional and salutary experience and one I highly recommend. But if you are going, don’t forget my invite.
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