Hallowe'en + graveyards

[bykerlads]

In contrast to the traditional Hallowe'en-type scarey view of graveyards,  I wonder if fellow rootschatters like me rather like such places.
When standing near long-departed ancestors, I feel quite calm,nicely connected to the past.
Though perhaps not a good idea to linger there after dark!

[Viktoria]

I love them. After returning from rural Shropshire after the war I missed the greeness and flowers.   We could go to the park but often there were lots of "streetwise " kids there and I was rather afraid of them.
 I went to my grandfather`s funeral and learnt how many of my family were interred there. I took to looking after the neglected graves and often spent hours there as there were at least three to weed and tidy up etc.
 It was quiet and peaceful and no one bothered us( I went with friends). We looked in the very old section for Victorian graves where there were many tiny babies buried and very sadly often the mother too, sometimes just days after a baby.                                                                       We were never afraid or thought it was morbid, we felt we were being kind to dead people whose last resting places were forgotten and overgrown.                                                                  For me particularly it was a substitute for the lovely countryside I had left behind.The birds sang and lots of wild flowers grew in the neglect.We did no harm other than perhaps puzzle relatives who may have wondered who had tidied up their family grave long neglected. We were  always respectful and left things  better than we had found them. It was healthy outdoor exercise and we often took butties and a bottle of diluted orange juice for a picnic, spending the whole day there.
 I suppose it was a bit odd but  I did miss the Shropshire countryside as   I was in a heavily built up area.Viktoria.

[ann255]

What a lovely story Vicktoria. 

I too find graveyards fascinating and peaceful places. I love to try and read the old epitaphs as well.

[dawnsh]

When my brothers and I were growing up, we used to go to Kensal Green cemetery with my dad and get some of the best conkers ever!

[roopat]

When I was growing up in London, my junior school didn't have any kind of playground or green space at all. The older children used to play on the (well fenced-in) rooftop, and the younger ones went (well, I suppose we were taken...) across the road where we played in the churchyard. We loved playing 'house' with the big raised flat tombs as tables. It was also fun to chase each other around the gravestones. We left London when I was 8 so I never had the chance to play on the roof 

I was so upset when I looked on Google Street view to see that churchyard was a building site 

Pat

[Countryquine]

OH and I spend many a peaceful hour wandering round old graveyards, even when on holiday.   Just imagining what sort of lives the departed have had is thought-provoking.  Those who have lived a long life, with family around seem to us to be lucky, but every visit uncovers a poignant story of some kind. 

[weste]

I like wandering round them as well. I like the variety of the monuments and the wealth of info on some of them. The downer is how some of them are in a state and stones are broken or unreadable.

[sharonmx5]

I like looking around cemeteries too, but I always feel self-conscious about directly looking at the graves, as if I'm looking at something that belongs to somebody else, prying almost.

[Viktoria]

 Sharon,I`m sorry you feel like that.If they are old and in a neglected part of the graveyard it could have been years since anyone read the names etc.They were meant to be looked at and read and in that way the people buried there are for a short moment remembered.

 They are , I agree,in one way private but in another public, I`d like someone to read mine from time to time- however I` ve settled for cremation-  because  a neglected grave is a  kind of  reproach I think.
  It worries  and upsets those who can no longer attend them. I suppose I ,in my childish way understood that when I played and gardened in our local cemetery .Coming from a village where everyone knew everyone else and remembered the family no grave was ever without  flowers or neglected. Of course there were very many fewer than the public graveyard I and my friends played in and tidied up  in Manchester.
 Don`t stop visiting, you never know who is aware you are there. Kind regards .Viktoria.