A Tomb With a View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards: Scottish Non-fiction Book of the Year 2021

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Cemetry Gates' is my favourite song by by favourite band (the Smiths). As a morose teenager who lived next door to a sprawling Victorian graveyard, the lyrics spoke to me. I would indeed gravely read the ivy-overgrown stones and imagine the lives of those who resided beneath them, creating life stories built around archaic names and centuries-old dates. When I moved to London, naturally I took rooms near to Highgate Cemetery, all the better to swoon over Lizzie Siddal's resting place and follow in the footsteps of crepe-clad mourners. Thanks to Peter Ross's glorious book, I now know that I was - and still am, and forever shall be - a taphophile. Cemeteries are also for the dead and the living alike. Speaking to Highgate's gardener and stonemason, and Haji Taslim Funerals is an intimate glimpse behind the curtain on the everyday life of burials.

In a particularly moving section of the book about how non-baptized babies go to limbo according to Catholic tradition and cannot be buried on consecrated ground, I found myself feeling the pain of parents who first had to endure the death of their child, but also could not take comfort in the possibility of reuniting in death. This was quite cruel. The section on Crossbones in London, a cemetery for the poor and outcasted, is also quite emotional. The main takeaway from this section is to see the beauty in the brokenness. Then there is a brother of hers who thinks he is Julius Caesar and dresses in a toga, slightly underplayed by Paul Shave. Jasmine Gartshore gave a spirited performance as another sister, Emil, and Mark Bailey as the bumbling Lucien was, perhaps, a wee bit over the top in his performance.Charlie East was somewhat miscast as the unlikely babe magnet, Peregrine Potter; he needed glamming up. Helen Saxton did well as nymphomaniac Monica, and her family were well represented by Liz Saxton as Agatha and Eric Saxton as the lawyer, this last a well studied and observed performance indeed. There are touching stories too, a love story of a couple who lived for 80 years and had 12 children and who died within hours of each other; one could not exist without the other. Mandie highlights Dora’s struggles to come to terms with the death of her beloved daddy, and is often regarded with contempt by her younger sisters. Emma is convincing as the man eater Monica.

The production, directed skilfully by Tracey Pearce, flowed along reasonably well, maybe a fraction slower than it should, but well acted, good positioning on stage throughout and yes, even a colourful, slightly creepy setting.

Love the title and I loved this book. I chose it because I found the title intriguing and because graveyards and tombs have a strange sense of wonder and fascination for many people. Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.

Because of this book, I would like to explore even more than I already have about how others approach death, burials, and more. Ross shares how the Muslim cemetery is a waiting room for heaven and looks different than what we might expect of a cemetery. People are told how to mourn and for how long. An interesting component here is the speed at which Muslims are buried and how funerals are done. I learned that women are usually referred to as "the wife of" or the "mother of" instead of by name like men out of respect. You will not easily pass by the forgotten graves of unbaptised children in Ireland; graves which had to be dug by their parents because the church would have nothing to do with them. Ross also speaks to Mohamed Omer of the hugely difficult task he had of dealing with the profound bereavement of relatives of the Grenfell fire – a bereavement made so much more difficult because the bodies could not be buried for some considerable time. The pain of such deaths hangs heavy in the air. So many stories, from Muslim burials by Britain’s oldest firm of Muslim funeral directors to grand monuments, from Whitby Goths to tiny unmarked graves; each has a story and Ross accords each with the same degree of care and interest. There’s humour and there is also profound sadness. In his introduction, Ross talks movingly about the book in the context of the Covid pandemic. Not just of lives lost, but of graveyards as a place of solace and a place to retreat to when parks became so crowded as to mitigate against social distancing. He tells us ‘ The coronavirus outbreak intensified this feeling I have that we are always in the company of the dead; that the outstretched palm is only a handspan away’. Ross is naturally empathetic. Here you will not find the hard edge of the journalist, humanity hidden under a veneer of cynicism. His curiosity and interest in people shines through; you feel he really does want to know as much as is possible about the lives of the people who are buried in our cemeteries and what befell them. And such stories there are a plenty! From the women from Wigtown who were tied to stakes and drowned for refusing to give up their Protestant faith to Hannah Twinnoy, who lies in a grave in Malmesbury Abbey and who became the first person in England to be killed by a tiger. A strange choice of play maybe, but overall this was yet another successful production for the Compton Players.

Ward’s direction embraces the excesses of the plot rather than shying away from them, which is surely the way to go. There is the odd fluff and imprecision, and some of the pacing – particularly early on – is suspect, but overall there is a clever momentum to the production. The last act, when the constant series of murders has made the stage considerably less crowded, is particularly well done. No. There is sadness in my book, just as there is in life, but – again like life – it’s full of humour and interest and, most of all, love. A walk through the graveyards of Britain guided by one of the most engaging wordsmiths willing to take you by the hand.' - The Big Issue (*Best Books 2020*) In modern Britain, however, fewer people are choosing to be buried in a graveyard: three quarters opt for cremation. Visiting and tending graves of relatives is also becoming less common, though strangely tombstone tourism is booming; Highgate cemetery is soon to have a cafe. In Brompton cemetery, Ross joins the Queerly Departed tour around plots of those thought to have been gay, lesbian, bisexual “or some shade between”. They pay their respects at the grave of the bohemian Italian heiress and bisexual, Marchesa Luisa Casati, who died in 1957 aged 76, and was buried with her taxidermied Pekinese: “She elevated hedonism to the level of poetry, putting the cadence into decadence, the verse into perverse.”

Even though it seems contradictory, this novel is brimming with a love for life. Remembering the dead is key, for then, they become people again, suffused with personality and history, mute vessels for love and longing. Oh, I love them all. I love the bones of them. But I do feel a certain fondness for the days I spent at Highgate in London. That’s not so much to do with the many famous people buried there, although it is such a treasure house of stories. What I like are the people who work or volunteer there, and who visit the graves loved ones. The gravedigger, the gardener, the stonemason, the tour guide. Highgate is full of great characters, people who are passionate about the place and work to keep it going. That, ultimately, is what my book is about: how graveyards live. A Tomb with a View made me feel anger, grief, and appreciation. It also allowed me to look at the tombstones from a perspective of legacies and remembrance they represent. Freda Mountjoy- Julie Holmes was very good playing the gently sweet, but then subtly sinister Freda. Her costume was also very lovely. Very good diction and interaction with other players. Andy Young played Perry her secretary, a shy imposter! Andy was superb throughout, as the scared, uncomfortable, and nervous man who eventually takes some control. Undressing on stage was comically managed, and well done. Characterisation and diction in all cases were excellent. A Tomb With A View is set in as sinister an old library as one is likely to come across presided over by a portrait of a grim faced, mad eyed old man. There, a dusty, lawyer reads a will (involving some millions of pounds) to an equally sinister family one member of which has were wolf tendencies, another wanders around in a toga of Julius Caesar and a third member is a gentle old lady who plants more than seeds in her flower beds. By the third act, there are more corpses than live members left in the cast and what about the sympathetic nurse and the author of romantic novels are they all, or more than, they seem to be? All is revealed as the plot twists and turns to its surprising conclusion.This book has opened up the social history that can be found, it's not just a place where the dead lay under the soil. Costume: The costumes were excellent, well thought out, giving each character individuality and there was great attention to detail. This sets the stage for a hilarious who done it, full of twists and turns and reveals that even Agatha Christie would be proud of. The play is set in the library of a sinister old house, where a dusty lawyer reads a multimillion pound will to an equally sinister family. One has werewolf tendencies, another thinks he’s Julius Caesar, and a third buries more than seeds in her flower beds. With the addition of a sympathetic nurse and an author of romantic novels, who will be the last man (or woman) standing?