Monuments for the Dead

I don't really share your macabe predilection...but I used to work in Los Angeles across the street from a cemetary with a bunch of famous dead people....Marilyn Monroe was the most notable, so we checked it out...but you aren't interested in the tombs of famous people. I wonder where Fischer rests. Iceland?

The graveyard in Bodelwydden in very interesting. As a child we'd stop there for a cup of tea, an old church and cafe alongside the cemetary, on our way to our holiday destination further along the coast.  There used to be lines of small black crosses, no names on them, but all dated the same;1919.  My father thought that they were soldiers who had died of influenza.

Some years later the crosses were changed to headstones, with names and dates, and a monument erected which stated that it was in honour of Canadian soldiers who were killed in honour of their country.  This seemed strange, the war had ended in 1918.  More changes occurred about twenty odd years ago.

Why had Canadian soldiers been killed in 1919 in N. Wales?  Their camp was at Kimmel Park, they were stationed there waiting to be sent back home.  It was cold and wet, as it is in N.Wales in the winter and the war was over; they wanted to go home.

There was a mutiny.  The soldiers refused to take orders and demanded to be sent back home.  They were massacred, over eighty of them died.  It's difficult to get all the facts and there's a few conflicting stories.  Bear in mind that the British had sent thousands of troops into Russia to crush the revolution there, many of these refused to fight and had to be sent back home. 

Apparantly there's books been written about this event as more troops joined the mutiny when they arrived back home at Tilbury docks.  It seems likely that the reason that the Canadian troops were'nt sent home is because they were also being considered for invasion of Russia, but no evidence I've come across to support this. 

Either way, they never made it back home and the British establishment had to cover the shame of the event.  Unmarked black crosses were the only recognition given to all those men who had served in WW1 by the british Govt and it looks like Canadian Govt or serviceman have acted to give the memory of the soldiers some dignity.

thodorisH,  I've never slept in a graveyard, but that's mostly because I have no desire to sleep outdoors.  I imagine it would be quiet enough.

Chicken_Monster, no I have little desire to visit a grave simply because the residence was famous.  Fischer was indeed buried in Iceland in the small town of Selfoss where Björk was partly raised. 

Firstplay, that's quite a tale, bizarre and compelling both. I learned a lot I never knew. Thanks for taking the time to relay it.

Have a google Batgirl, there's some stuff there. I intend to try and find out about the mutiny at Tilbery Docks.

Firstplay, I was doing precisely that. I saw the St. Margaret Church yard, and some of the johnny-come-lately tombstones. Some places call it a mutiny, some a riot and some an incident.  It seems to have developed from lack of communication, lack of supplies and total frustration - as if the war itself wasn't bloody enough.  It was quite unfortunate.

I also just did a cursory read of the so-called Tilbery Docks mutiny on the steamship Yorkshire by the Lascar Firemen in what appears to be May, 1893. That information isn't quite as forthcoming. Good luck with that if that's the incident to which you refer

kaynight, if you walk through a cemetery, you'll see some graves with flowers that loved ones placed there in remembrance. You will also see grave with no flowers and some with the names and dated eroded with time and no one to remember them. It's this lack of remembrance that affects me the most - almost as if their lives, and eventually those of everyone, were meaningless.  I think taking time to ponder what may very well be the only evidence that these people ever existed somehow makes me feel good.  I try not to disturb their rest.

As far as I know it was about 1917/18.  Soldiers refused to fight against the Russians.  They'd be sent to Archangel to supposedly open up a second front against German forces but were given maps by the Russian people showing that it was actually an invasion against themselves.  The story goes that they were met at Tilbury after being sent back home by a large miltary unit who were supposed to detain them.  Instead they asked to join the mutiny!  This is just a story I was told but never managed to get hold of anything to confirm it.

The Kimmel Park massacre was kept hidden away for years but I remember the small black crosses that were there when I was a child.

Absolutely.  Make the most of it, have a laugh, as we only get one go. Interesting story bout Kimmel Park though Kay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmel_Park_Riots

                    very interesting, ty :  strikes creating mutineries

 The 15,000 Canadian troops had been stationed in Kinmel Camp for a period after the First World War, and were kept in undesirable conditions due to strikes.

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Ty Batgirl

Back to the topic :   to bring children visit cemeteries seem a weird idea, they may get a trauma for a long time.  But it is free and may calm them, as says a comic in a famous movie : "we can take a rest here, neighbours downstairs seem not noisy".

As an adult, i would'nt even think to visit some, but after reading that i will suggest that to my girlfriend, to get her reaction. ty.

yes it is quite different : a devoir de mémoire, memory duty ?? sorry i dunno if it is the right term, a family duty, slightly different than visiting Kheops or Kephredn pyramids, fantastic monuments in others cemeteries. 

Death really inspires the artists. Monuments in cemeteries are just incredible sometimes, indian cemeteries outside in North Dakota too, Maya holes in Yucatan, and cemetery at the corner of the street whith all our family. 

Great thread , ty OP.

Bonjour FrenchBasher.

I really don't see children traumatized by walking through a cemetery.  Children might be traumatized from phantasmagoric stories involving graveyards but not from the parks themseves. 

There's an indian mound about an hour drive from where I live but in spite my interest in American Indians I've never visited it.

ty batgirl

one guy was traumatized in childhood: because it was something special : mutinery, strike, a long way from home Canada, rain fog and smog, too, relodging ppl in too small houses, grippe, WWI. but it is off topics, it looks like a clip from english musical teams, or Michael jackson "thriller" may be you remember.

Actually , except for family grave, i wouldn't suggest my son to let me bring his two sons in cemeteries. Frenchies are weird, they prefer Disneyland. He would explode me. We here are not serious.

concerning Indians, i thought to the custom to have bodies up, outside. close to Basque country, (body, not coffin).

concerning a cemetery i would glad if interested to show u in France , it is famous PERE LACHAISE, Paris, F, EU. i've never been, but it looks fascinating, imagine contrast grave Jim Morrison and grave of unknown without flowers, just one beside the other.

i remembered my FIRST  POST on your thread about religions and Chess, with RJC explaining I was undecipherable. it was truth, i worked hard, and now ppl wanna believe i'm french.

Well, anyway, I'm one of your unnumerous followers. Anti WAR song is great, Craonne ???  a mutinery too, WWI, size slightly different from Kummel.

Long life to u, batgirl, threads you OP never die. Hope you visit Kheops too.

Hey I dig cemeteries too!*

Perhaps not for exactly the same reason though, what really drives my interest is a fascination for all things...



Gothic art; architecture; literature; sub cultures; 17th century pirates ... the list goes on and on. But certainly, wandering through an ancient cemetery is not unlike strolling through a battered history book, some pages intact, others tattered and worn.

Have you ever visited one of the vintage cemeteries in New Orleans? Because of its location on swampy, below sea-level terrain the tombs in New Orleans are built above ground and arranged in a labyrinthine manner. Now they are truly monuments for the dead, and a major tourist attraction what's more:

This burial practice fascinated Anne Rice and it features heavily in many of her novels (which I recommend by the way):



* I know I know, look I'm sorry for the awful pun - I seem to be making a habit of them these days.

yes

Paris               -             Pere Lachaise       -       Balzac

Balzac created so many characters in Touraine, the place we live, that lotta weak people thought he had a disorder. Actually he had millions of followers. I'm fan of him, lost illusions is title of my favourite..

Victor hugo too, for many he is a subway station in Paris, for a happy few he has created many characters. 

My favourite is La Esmeralda., Notre Dame de Paris, roman.

victor Hugo tomb is in Pantheon, paris, with a "happy few" giants. Pantheon is a "cemetary Monument".

bienvenue en France , any time, Batgirl.

post 1 an interesting paradox : an unknown person can be famous, it is "the unknown soldier" , nobody could find who he was! and anonymous person got one of the post famous grave in all times.

an european cemetery , mixing "jet set, park , unknown"