The project started off with the two of us concentrating on
recording the graves of people who reached the age of at least 100 years.
However we soon discovered that we were finding other memorials that were of
particular interest or rarity and we decided that these too deserved to be
recorded for posterity. The project began in October 2008 and since then Claire
and I have visited 738 different locations. That is an average of nearly 14
sites a month.
One of the great joys of the work is that you never know what
you are going to find when you walk through the gate. I still get a buzz of
excitement when we arrive at a new venue and Claire turns left and I turn right.
We have a strange tradition that we go "beep, beep, beep" when we find a grave
of interest - providing of course the other person is in ear-shot!
Just under
half the time we don't find anything worth recording. This usually happens when
there are only a handful of memorials in the churchyard. By far the largest site
where we didn't find anybody who reached the age of 100 was Shire Lodge Cemetery
in Corby.
Sometimes we are left puzzled, almost annoyed, by inscriptions that
lack important details. It is not unknown for the surname of the deceased to not
appear on the memorial and I well recall one stone that didn't included any of
the names of the deceased just "Mum and Dad"! Almost as strange are the
patterned stones with gold inscriptions that are unreadable within a very few
years of being erected.
You might think that once we had examined over 4,100,000 graves
we would be immune to getting the proverbial "lump in the throat". Absolutely
not the case. It is not always the graves of babies that have a strongest
emotional impact. For me it was twin grave of Daphne Joan Stokes and Peter
William Stokes that was the saddest of them all.
Daphne Joan
Stokes and Peter William Stokes were killed during an unauthorised flight at
RAF High Ercall in August 1943. Their young son, also called Peter, was brought
up by his maternal grandmother in Hove, who forever mourned the loss of her
beautiful daughter.
**********
A new book for grave hunters everywhere!
The authors have viewed millions of gravestones, and are offering readers a selection of the rare and unusual gravestones that they have seen, with full-colour illustrations. Each category of type of gravestone, age of person, cause of death, rare names, and errors found on gravestones are given a points score to indicate rarity.
All my new discoveries are published first on the social history group on Facebook so if you want to keep up to date with what is happening you will need to subscribe to the group by clicking on the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/609806292391471/
