Gertie Gitana's bench

I was in Edinburgh recently. The city's main thoroughfare is Princes Street, which is wide enough to have benches all along one side - for nearly a mile I'd guess. Pretty much every bench has a dedication to a local notable or resident.

But this one took me by surprise, being dedicated to the variety artist Gertie Gitana (her big song was 'Nellie Dean').
Gertie was born in north Staffordshire at the end of the nineteenth cntury, and so is, er, one of 'ours', not theirs.  What's a dedication to her doing in Scotland's capital?

Lourdes in Hednesford

This extraordinary structure is a copy of the grotto at Lourdes in France.  The famous grotto there is where St Bernadette had her vision of the Mother of Jesus in the mid-nineteenth century.

The structure - complete with statue of the Virgin Mary - stands outside the Our Lady Of Lourdes Church in Hednesford.   On the anniversary of St Bernadette's first vision (February 11th 1858) the church members have a celebratory event here.

Not so secret society

The idea of freemasonry is still vaguely controversial... are freemasons a secret society of eccentrics or simply an example of a successful networking group?  A recent BBC article opened up the discussion again.

I know that Freemasonry started to get very respectable and widespread in the early part of the last century, but even so I was surprised to see the virtual whole of the west wall of Stoke Minster Church covered in memorial tablets to freemasons.  
I need to read up on the subject I guess.

Memorial without dignity

It's Remembrance Sunday tomorrow; a solemn day in this 100th anniversary year of the start of World War One.

There has been some criticism though that people are going out this year creating all sorts of 'unsustainable' memorials, and should think more about how these memorials will maintain their dignity in years to come.
The Memorial Garden at Rudyard Lake is a case in point.  It's simply a nasty mess, and should be dismantled as soon as possible, as it carries little or no dignity.

Memorial to a selfless pilot

It's no wonder that the people of Creswell and nearby Stafford put up a memorial to Captain John Perrin of the US Air Force.
It goes back to the last days of the Second World War:  by managing to pilot his out-of-control aircraft away from habitation and crashing it into empty fields, the captain must have saved the lives of a good number of families. It probably cost him his life to do it though.


Each year, the local folk gather to remember him on July 4th, the date of the crash.  This year was the 70th anniversary.

'Heroic' Minton tiles

You can see Minton ceramic tiles all over the world to this day.  Their great era was the ninetenth-century, and many great Victorian buildings, especially in the British Empire, used Minton tiles for floors and for wall-decoration.
Minton's factory was based in north Staffordshire of course; and each time I see Minton work, wherever it is, I get a glow of Staffordshire-satisfaction.

Minton work can be seen at the so-called Postman's Park in London in the 'Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice' loggia.  The memorial remembers some forty 'ordinary people' who died trying to save others. 
It's actually very moving.  Poor Frederick was killed exactly 146 years ago, but the prosaic dedication still has a resonance.

And the Art-Nouveau tiles are very fine indeed.

Bravery rewarded. In a way.

Poor Timothy Trow.  Seeing a young girl fall into the canal at this spot (along London Road, in Oakhill), he jumped from the tram he was on (this was 1894), dived in to try to save her, was affected by cramp - and drowned.
Fortunately for her, the girl was eventually pulled out, and lived.

However, the public was so affected by his brave act that a collection was raised for the memorial obelisk you see in the photo.

If you do go to see Timothy's monument, you might wonder where the canal is, as there is no sign of it now. The Newcastle Canal was closed in 1935, and since filled in.

Memorial to "benevolent individuals"

This is a most unusual cemetery memorial, as it remembers no particular person, nor does it name any individuals of this group of "benevolent" people.

It's a memorial to all those who have donated body-parts after their deaths to the local university's School of Medicine.  The main campus of Keele University is just half-a-mile from this site, Newcastle-under-Lyme's new municipal cemetery.

It's maybe unique in its dedication. I'm not sure.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Lived to be 125...

Yes, according to this old wooden board inside Adbaston Church, one parishioner there, William Wakeley, lived to a ripe old age - better than most of us can hope for even in this hygienic age. He died in 1714, aged 125.  So it says...
The effect of this historical object is a little offset by the wall-heater next to it, but I guess it gets cold in these old churches (St Michael & All Angels is twelfth century).

Funnily enough, his actual gravestone, which is by the church door, is not much to look at.

The angel of Aston

There’s something very spooky about angel-memorials in graveyards. They should be reassuring, but they have exactly the opposite effect on me, even one with a beautiful face, like this one in Aston churchyard.  Her wings are really like pinions too; it's quite a piece.

The fact that her arms have broken off may contribute to her spookiness.

And I can fully understand why the makers of Doctor Who should have based one of their alien-creatures, the ‘Weeping Angels’, on these statues.

Link: The Weeping Angels

Floral Uttoxeter

'Britain in Bloom' time is upon us as I remarked a few days ago. The competition judges which towns and villages are doing their best to put on a florally attractive face.
The judges have been out and about for a few weeks now; and the results will be known in September.

Uttoxeter has certainly put on a show...