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Dead Calm
By Dame Beryl Bainbridge
In conjunction with our special report on pleasure, we asked three famed writers to reflect on the pastime that gives them the greatest joy.
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My interest in burial grounds began in childhood, for in those far-off days, in contrast to the deafening silence surrounding the subject of procreation and birth, death and the hereafter were constantly under discussion. The dead were ever with us, lost at sea, killed on the battlefields, starved in concentration camps.
Born in the north of England, I attended Sunday school, where one was taught to believe that those among us who had led blameless lives would one day join Our Lord in that dear land above the bright blue sky. Nearby was a small Norman church within whose graveyard, ivy-throttled, stood the rotting remains of wooden stocks in which, in times gone by, sinners were imprisoned to be pelted with garbage—and worse. Every week the dead were laid to rest, and every fifth day the floral tributes, now sodden, were flung in a decaying heap against the railings. There were memorial cards attached to the withered blooms—Gone at Last, Safe at Rest, God Rest You Ma'am, You Were One of the Best, being very popular. I tore off these acknowledgements of love without a pang; come morning the rain would have washed away such sentiments.
As I grew older, my passion for cemeteries intensified. It seemed to me, long after my belief in heaven had crumbled, that memorials were of profound importance: They afforded comfort to those left behind.
In my native city of Liverpool, there was once a magnificent sunken graveyard. Alas, the winged statues and the tombstones have long since been carted away and replaced by a walkway, along which nobody walks save those who need to stick needles into their veins.
To those who think a passion for cemeteries morbid: Remember that none of us will escape a cessation of breathing, and that such resting places record our small histories.
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