Summer cemetery

Some might say that the cemetery is neglected, a disgrace.

For more than a hundred years bereaved families lay their loved ones here. Some left a temporary memorial, long since disintegrated. Others left what they believed to be a permanent memorial, many of these have also fallen. Others had no money to pay for a burial leave alone a memorial, but everyone in their way remembered.

Perhaps that is all we can do today. Remember and retell the stories of those who lie here. Those with or without a memorial, we can all remember them.

Personally, I love the cemetery in its summer wilfulness and there is no other place I should rather spend eternity.

Photographs taken recently in Radnor Street Cemetery.

Desire Paths

We’ve all seen them – paths created across green spaces by the footfall of others taking a short cut. French philosopher Gaston Bachelard called them ‘lignes de désir’ in the Poetics of Space, a book about architecture published in 1958. My favourite blogger, The Gentle Author, writes about them on Spitalfields Life where he calls them Desire Paths. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/08/17/east-end-desire-paths/

We have our very own desire paths in Radnor Street Cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves volunteers. Follow any one of these paths and you will discover the grave of a serviceman who lost his life as a direct result of military service in two world wars.