In Memory of Sarah and Victoria

Some of you may have been reading me long enough to remember the post I wrote two years ago today. Others may know about my 365 Day Project, a photography project I'm doing through Flickr. For today's photo I had a very strong urge to incorporate a photograph of Sarah's grave into my shot. The problems with this idea are many. Photos of Sarah's grave are to be found on the web but using them would infringe copyright. To avoid this I would really need to take a photograph myself, which would mean visiting her grave. Sarah is buried in Allerton Cemetery, only a 45 minute journey from my house, and actually less than half an hour from where I was this afternoon. However, Allerton Cemetry is huge, easily the largest cemetery I have ever visited in the UK and I had no idea where the grave was. I phoned Liverpool Council and spoke to a very kind man who told me that the record office could tell me the plot number and which section it was in, but that the turn-around for this would be within 48 hours. It seemed like a doomed mission.

However, I decided to go anyway. Cemeteries are calming places that sooth my soul when I am as restless as I was today. I have passed it before but never been in. I drove up the main drive and parked my car near the central chapel, with absolutely no idea where to go. I spotted a grave under a tree festooned with Liverpool scarves, but it was for a serviceman killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009. I wondered around in a large circle for maybe 30 minutes and spotted an urban fox, trotting through the cemetery towards the woodland area but nothing else. As I circled back again towards the chapel, resigned to giving it all up as a bad job, I saw the soldier's grave again and then, across the grass saw a tree with much older scarves hanging from it.



Amazingly, I had parked my car less than one minute's walk away.

RIP Sarah, Victoria and the other 94.