Harbingers of spring

When I was a child, we had a forsythia bush at the side of the house. Each year, the first sight of those bright yellow flowers on the bare stems brought joy to my heart. It told me winter had been defeated by spring once again and the warm days were coming. These days, the magnolia is my harbinger of spring. There are several on my walk to the shops, and seeing the furry buds burst to reveal delicate pink or white petals brings the same joy, for the same reason. Now, in mid March, as I plodded up the hill, there were two magnolias bursting with blooms under a deep blue sky. It may have still be cold enough for hats and scarves, but it felt like a sign of new beginnings all the same.

There were signs of spring in the Old Cemetery too. Fat buds were swelling on the rhododendrons and the vibrant yellow gorse flowers brightened my Saturday morning walk with their colour and their coconut and vanilla scent. In a burst of optimism, I decided to brave the narrow dirt trails around the perimeter of the cemetery. In winter they are often too muddy to walk with any enjoyment but the bright sky and the firm grass of the flats lured me onwards.

There were primroses growing amongst the graves, both pink and pale yellow. The graves here are so old that some of the names have weathered away and the occupants have been forgotten. There is hardly anyone left to mourn and bring flowers, but Mother Nature still remembers and provides. Personally, I think I’d rather have a living primrose than a bunch of cut flowers to wilt and die.

The firm grass and the blue sky that lured me was a trick. It wasn’t long before I came upon the mud. Luckily, there wasn’t too much of it and most of it was easily skirted, although my new boots were soon looking less than pristine. The real trouble with the mud is that looking for it and avoiding it stops me looking at the graves and the flowers. It wasn’t all staring at the ground though, there were still some graves that caught my eye.

One of them belonged to Helen and Samuel White. The name caught my eye because my grandparents, Leonard and Laura White were on my mind. They were the inspiration for my second book, Land Fit For Heroes, and I’d spent the first weeks of March going through the final edits and getting it ready for publishing. Sadly, I couldn’t find out much about Helen and Samuel. That’s the problem with a name like White, there are far too many of them to easily track down.

The next thing I discovered was a tent hidden amongst the trees. As it was a green and black tent I almost missed it, and even when I did see it I thought I might have been imagining it at first. Much as I like wandering in the cemetery, it seems a very odd place to want to set up camp. With the whole of the Common at their disposal, I wonder why these campers thought this was a good spot? I tiptoed past, afraid to disturb the sleeping occupants and puzzled why anyone would choose to sleep amongst the graves.

I was still ruminating about the tent when I turned the corner and began to follow the Hill Lane wall of the cemetery. Now the gentle hum of traffic reminded me why I don’t take this particular path more often. Being a less travelled path does have advantages though. The graves here are less familiar and there are still new names and interesting stories to discover. The next name that caught my eye was Pothecary, perhaps because it was another name from my book.

The grave belonged to William Enos Pothecary, his wife Margaret and daughter Daisy, who died aged just five. The name Pothecary, an occupational surname denoting an apothecary, or chemist, is unusual, although the Kelly’s directories tell me there were quite a few of them living in Southampton in the 1920’s, mostly in Northam and Chapel. In fact, a little digging told me that a William Pothecary had actually lived in Melbourne Street in 1925, very close to my grandparents. Whether it was the same one or not, I can’t tell, but I imagine my grandparents would have known him. William Enos was born in April 1845 to Enos and Ann Pothecary. He married Margaret Young and had eight children. He worked as a greengrocer in St Mary’s Street at the turn of the century and died on 15 August 1925. Of course, the Pothecary in my book is fictional and not connected to William at all, but the name jumped out at me all the same.

The next interesting grave seemed rather crowded, with no less than five names on it. Age and Ivy made them difficult to decipher, and as they were also Whites, there was no chance of finding out more about them. Maybe they were related to Leonard and Laura, maybe not, but I stopped for a moment all the same. There were purple crocuses nearby, so Mother Nature hasn’t forgotten them.

A little further on the sun illuminated a clump of daffodils. Before long the words of Wordsworth were going through my head. Everywhere I looked there were more daffodils, a veritable host of them to brighten my lonely wandering. If there is anything more spring like I can’t think of it.

There were daffodils and primroses decorating the Newman memorial too, although I doubt that Ethel Maude Newman, the Titanic lady visitor, will ever be forgotten. I’ve written about Miss Newman before and she appears briefly in Plagued, so I won’t repeat myself now. The memorial is not hers alone though.

Eric Charlton Newman, Ethel Maude’s brother, is one of the others remembered on the memorial. Eric was born in 1890. When the Great War broke out, he was twenty four. Like my grandfather, he joined the Hampshire Regiment. He was a private in the 246th company, the machine gun corps. Sadly, he died on 23 September 1917 in Ypres, possibly during the battle of the Menin Ridge Road. He is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at West-Vlaanderen Belgium.

The morning sun and the flowers made this an especially lovely walk and the graves I discovered seemed very fitting, given the work I’d been doing over the previous weeks. Perhaps fate led my feet this way for a reason, or maybe my subconscious picked them out because my characters were on my mind. Either way, they, the sky and the flowers brightened up my Saturday morning.

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