N307: no angel

Belfast City Cemetery's ivy-draped Victorian paths are watched over by a detachment of stone angels. These creatures, more beautiful now with their missing arms and noses than they must have been when they were first carved, decorate dozens of graves. 

Many of them were set in place at a woman's tomb - they seem to reflect an idealistic attitude to middle-class or wealthy women that might have been prevalent in the late nineteenth century in a city like Belfast. They must have been expensive to commission. They're all different, and some of the carving is really fabulous. 

Perhaps these angels provided a focus for the grief of a bereaved family. Perhaps they were intended too to show others how much the departed loved one was valued and missed. 

Margaret Service

Eva Kenmare

Joseph Davison

Margaret Baird

Rebecca Peacock

Mary Inglis


Some of my ancestors are buried in Belfast City Cemetery. Catherine and Alexander Bryans, my great-great-grandparents, and their daughter Isabella, my great-great-aunt, lie in plot N307.

The Bryans family had moved to Belfast for work from Clones, having lost three of their six children there already. (You can read about their life in Clones here.) I always think that Isabella might have worked in a mill, judging from the addresses round the Crumlin Road at which they lived. Both remaining sons trained as painters with their father but went on to become Methodist ministers (and you can read about that here).

Alexander, a painter and decorater, died in 1896, at the age of 55, of lead poisoning. Isabella died four years later, aged 32. Her burial certificate states the cause of death as "debility". Catherine succumbed to cancer in 1905, aged 62.

Also buried in N307 is William Alexander Hewitt, aged three months. He was the child of Isaac and Anna Hewitt, with whom Catherine lodged in her widowhood. Isaac was a friend of William, my great-grandfather, and his younger brother Alex, after whom the child was named. Little William died in 1899, and I imagine that Catherine, as the proprietor of a recently established grave plot, offered it as a resting place for her friends' baby.

There is no angel at N307. There isn't even a gravestone or an iron marker. It would have been too expensive.

Today it's just a patch of grass between the stone grave-beds of two richer families.

I visited it this afternoon. I walked towards it through an avenue of big headstones, with my hood up, sheltering from the cold Belfast rain. I felt both sad and proud to stand by our unmarked green patch. This was a brave, devout, fractured, transplanted family. Each of them in turn was sorely missed and mourned. But they have no angel.

There I was, standing crying on my great-great-granny's bones, and a thought came to me: We are their angels. Nobody carved stones for them, but they have a heritage of flesh and love, creativity, intellect, faith and integrity. We are their angels.

I tied a black cotton ribbon round the bunch of flowers I'd brought, set it gently on the grave, and walked back down the Falls Road in the rain.

Portaferry, troubled

To Portaferry, in the finger-numbing mist of last Saturday. The boats were as worn and beautiful as ever. The houses my grandfather and his father lived in still make me happy. I found nice new architectural details, and a lovely lustre-ware jug in a charity shop.

But I worry for this town that's so close to my heart.

The hotel has closed. This seems like an insurmountable loss. Everything seems to have faded and failed.

You can see that people are trying hard, pulling together, setting up community initiatives, attempting to keep everything from falling apart too much.

Maybe it's a phase, a winter hibernation before the town wakes up refreshed for the summer. I hope so. It's painful to see this beloved elderly relative suffer.

Letter from Kilcloud

Over the past few weeks I've been putting together some of the photographs from my Kilcloud project with music I composed to go with them. It's not completely finished at this point, but here's a little preview: click on the title below to view it on Youtube...

Letter from Kilcloud

Skating through life

I found these roller skates hidden in the corner of my favourite antique shop and loved them immediately. They give off the happy vibes of something that has been used and treasured. There's beauty in their wear and tear.

And the wheels are marked "Tenacity". I never had enough of that to learn to skate properly, either on wheels or on ice. The few times I had a go, I always fell over in the first two minutes and then just tried to hide at the side of the rink or the park or wherever we were instead, attempting, almost certainly in vain, to look cool.

"Those who don't try never look foolish", as Fiyero truthfully/foolishly/wisely says in Stephen Schwartz's Wicked.

In fact, I should have tried a lot harder. Once you get past a certain age (30?), you see that having a go is actually a lot cooler than not trying in case you fail. Skating through life might have been nice.

Wicken Fen

Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire:  understatedly beautiful. A lovely midwinter walk.

And Mum and Dad came along too. Well, actually, they drove me there, as I sat like a teenager in the back of the Astra, playing on my phone.

Dead roses for new year

A new year. A small part of me thrills to the thought of new beginnings, clearing out clutter, striving towards goals. I have read Marie Kondo's (I see her name comes second only to Marie Curie's on Google) book about tidying, disposing of everything except the few things which bring you joy. And I sort of wish I had completed this task and was now relaxing in a living room which thrilled me in every spare and elegant detail.

But the sorry truth is that I am quite lazy, very sentimental about old stuff sitting round my house, and a serious procrastinator. It's just as well that in my day job, a bell rings every 35 minutes and a group of teenage girls enters my room, ready to misbehave if I don't have some manner of productive activity prepared for them. If I had a freelance schedule I'd never achieve anything. And outside my day job, the chances of decluttering my house are very slim. Most things would bring me a little bit of joy if I looked at them for long enough.

But the large part of me that will not be decluttering is also a bit sceptical about new year's changes. I am not a big fan of constantly working on myself, to become a better person. Really, I would be better working to help other people and not spending too much time scrutinising myself. There's plenty that could be improved. My relatives would be happy to provide a list. But I'm reasonably fond of myself, despite the dodgy bits, and I'd prefer to press on as I am, just trying to be kind, be creative and have integrity. And realising that those are long-term values, which can't be measured as targets for the year.

And in that spirit, when I should be photographing spring bulbs, perhaps little snowdrops, promising a bright new year of possibilities and improvements, I've been shooting dead roses. They've been cluttering up my kitchen for a month, but I thought they were still beautiful, and this afternoon the light was clear enough to see that.

Joy

There's always a lot of stuff going on inside my head at the same time, at various levels of superficiality and various degrees of focus. I would quite fancy some chocolate fudge. The clouds seem to be lightening, so perhaps I could get my camera out in a while. My hands are looking kind of wrinkly on the keyboard and I must change my hand cream. I miss my boyfriend. I'm trying to remember some lines from a mid period Ciaran Carson poem. And there's a level at which I'm removed from and aware of all of those thoughts and feelings, while still experiencing each of them with all their nuances and details.

I tend to imagine that this is a uniquely twenty-first century type of consciousness, reflecting our sophistication and intelligence. In years past, I imagine that people were simpler creatures with less highly developed thought processes, probably more easily pleased, but less delicately attuned to shades of meaning. Less aware of the idiosyncrasies of their own psyches.

I ask my mum and dad, with whom I'm currently staying, what they think - not that they are unsophisticated creatures from centuries gone by. They think I'm wrong. The Psalms, Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson are the work of people whose minds seem considerably more complex and multifaceted than my own. And there must have been innumerable others who thought in similar ways but didn't have the means of communicating to readers from the future. Ok, they are right. That wasn't a very long argument.

But I think I may still be right about people from the past being more easily pleased, in a good way. 

At Christmas, I love re-reading my granny's account of a girlhood Christmas in Ardara, County Donegal, around 1910...

Every winter there was a tea-meeting otherwise Social, in connection with the church & at Xmas an Xmas tree from which every member present received a gift. Every gift was numbered and numbers were distributed to each person & there was much applause when some stalwart fisherman received a toy horse & cart or perhaps a string of beads.

During the winter the farmers & fisher folk found their own amusement in family gatherings in their own homes. To these the minister & his wife were always invited. I remember the thrill I had when I was taken to one of them. At a duly appointed hour a horse & car drew up at the manse door & well wrapped with rugs we started on a five mile drive to the Point. I was always afraid that a stumble on the part of the horse would precipitate the passengers into the Bog through which the road ran but my fears were unfounded, nothing worse happening than the loss of a hair ribbon blown by the wind amongst the bog cotton. 

In due time we reached our destination. Our host & hostess greeted us with the local “You’re welcome down the Point” & when we had removed our outer garments we were ushered into the best parlour where the table was spread for dinner & in relays up to fifty people sat down to a sumptuous feast. My eyes often strayed to a corner of the room where in a glass case stood a doll two feet high, most beautifully dressed, holding in her arms a smaller one. A present from America it was considered much too good to be played with & so the little ones could only stand & gaze instead of having the joy of fondling it. 

When all had feasted, the table was finally cleared, the final washing was done & the women folk brought out their sprigging & Irish crochet work & a concert was begun. There was no musical instrument, but someone sang, another recited, another gave a reading, Stories were told until the midnight hour drew nigh when a cup of tea was passed round, the minister conducted family worship & we said good night & now with a change of coachman & horse we were driven back five miles and returned safely to the manse. 

The excitement and joy of this occasion always impresses me. It might still be an adventure for a child today, but I suspect that it wouldn't be remembered for so long and with quite such fond happiness. 

I think that we're harder to impress today, less open to a sense of wonder, cooler, in a bad way.

On Christmas Eve I spent several hours in my favourite cathedral, Ely. I love it, and I always find some new detail or view to delight me. But I imagine that, to an ordinary person from the eighteenth or sixteenth or thirteenth century, this building would have been the most amazing and wonderful thing they'd ever seen. The joyful decorations and celebrations of Christmas Eve there would have been unforgettable.

I wish I could see it through their eyes for even a moment. Feel a little more uncomplicated joy.