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On this morning's dog walk I once again took the route through Hitchin Cemetery to pay my respects to the Hitchin dead. Margaret Jane Braidwood is the person I mentioned before, whose grave says "She always thought of others first." It's a pretty cool epitaph and one that I am not sure many people would achieve these days.
It's amazing how much of a sense of a person you can get from a gravestone. The fact that she is called "Our dear sister" suggests that she never got married or had kids (or if she did her partner and kids weren't responsible for her burial). She was too busy thinking of others first to find herself someone to love. Or someone to love her. Don't put others first is the clear message here.
Mary Braidwood shares the same plot and again, with much presumption, I suppose this is the sister who buried her 27 years before. For Mary to be buried with her sibling also suggests that she maybe didn't have a family. Or if she did she didn't like them or maybe they didn't like her. It's noticeable that Mary doesn't get a line saying who selfless she was. Which is sort of an insult by omission. Margaret was lovely, but Mary... got nothing to say about her.
I may be wrong, but the story that is conjured up is of two sisters who lived together, never found love and then one had to survive 3 decades on her own and had no one close left to say something nice about her. Or prepared to pay the extra fee just to sum up her character a bit. "Not as nice as her sister, but still a good person".... "Bit of a prick"... "Kept herself to herself once her sister died."
I wondered if there was a show or a podcast or whatever in "The Dead of Hitchin" in which I speculate about the lives of Edwardians based on the information from their gravestone. Or even try to find out more about them to see if I was right.
I have too many ideas to do them all. Or sometimes any of them.
Stick that on my gravestone.
I continued to explore Hitchin, taking paths I'd not been on before. Down one alleyway I saw someone else's attempt to achieve some kind of immortality, as they'd put graffiti on a metal railing. It simply said "Knob Cheese" (actually "KNob CHeese" which makes it look like a crossword clue from Minute Cryptic).
Why did they write this? Was it a cry for help? Should I write, "Wash under your foreskin" to help them out? Or was it just a yelp of frustration about the world we live in? Or an acceptance that we're all fucked?
I dearly hope that this isn't a nickname. Or even worse a Christian name.
Sometimes you just have to write Knob Cheese on something.
KNob CHeese.
It pretty much sums everything up. Again, great epitaph.
I went into London to do more podcast interviews. I like to walk to stuff if I can and headed from St Pancras to Great Portland Street, stopping for lunch at Pret on the way (also had dinner at another one. I love Pret). As I waited in the queue the handsome man serving and I caught each other's eye. Was it a moment or was he just looking to see who was next?
I bought my sandwich and coffee. He asked me how my day was going. I didn't tell him about the grave or the knob cheese and just brightly said it was good. I was energised from the walk. He asked if I had a club card which I don't because I am not in town enough and Hitchin seems to think having a Gails is more important than having a Pret. He said "Your coffee today is free."
I'd heard of this happening, but I don't think it's ever happened to me. Why had he chosen me? Had we had a little moment? Was he trying to let me know I was sexy?
Or had he seen a battered and shambolic old man in his store and thought, that guy looks like he can't afford this and taken pity on me?
Either way it was a nice little boost to have had this friendly interaction and this small gift. Even if this was flirtation and even were I not married and 98% heterosexual I wouldn't have taken it any further. Any seemingly attractive younger person who is attracted to me must have serious problems (my wife is a special case, but also she is pot committed now, to use a poker term that also applies to me being fat). Like Groucho Marx approximately, I would never get involved with someone crazy enough to find me attractive.
Anyway, free coffee. I've still got it. Or so not got it that I've got to the stage where I get pity drinks. Either way I am happy.
How could anyone think the world is KNob CHeese when things like this happen?
