Happy Endings - Grave Stories

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Britain has not been invaded since 1066, when, as alleged by Sellar and Yeatman, “The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.”

Acknowledged, but not entirely true, for though their achievements were usually puny by contrast with the Normans, and though they are not so well remembered, other assailants have landed from time to time, seeking to vanquish and subjugate the land.

Under Sweyn II the Danes took first York in 1069, and then Ely in 1070, before accepting a bribe to leave the country.

The future Louis VIII of France had himself proclaimed king, though never crowned, in London in 1216. He captured Winchester and controlled half of England before being defeated at Lincoln and accepting 10,000 marks to withdraw.

In 1588, when the apparently much greater threat of the Spanish Armada was defeated by a combination of English fireships and British weather, some unfortunate Spaniards landed by default, shipwrecked on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Later, at the Battle of Cornwall in 1595 a Spanish force of four hundred men sacked Mousehole, Penzance, Newlyn, and Paul.

When the Dutch sailed up the Medway to Chatham in 1667, they burned more than a dozen warships and captured the flagship of the English fleet, HMS Royal Charles. Samuel Pepys recorded his alarm:

and so home, where all our hearts do now ake; for the newes is true, that the Dutch have broke the chaine and burned our ships, and particularly The Royal Charles, other particulars I know not, but most sad to be sure. And, the truth is, I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone, … So having with much ado finished my business at the office, I home to consider with my father and wife of things, and then to supper and to bed with a heavy heart.

Twenty-one years later another Dutch invasion, led by William of Orange, landed in Devon, with a fleet of 463 ships and 40,000 men. This time they had been invited by the opponents of James II, and when the latter fled the country, he was deemed to have abdicated. William and Mary replaced him, a substitution legitimised by Parliament and hailed as The Glorious Revolution.

But while that may have been the last successful incursion into mainland Britain, it was not the final landing by a hostile force. On 24 February 1797 around 1,200 French soldiers landed at Carreg Wastad Point near Fishguard in South Wales. This battalion incorporated a penal unit consisting of convicts mobilised for military service. Called the Legion Noire, because they used captured British uniforms died black or blue, they landed appropriately under cover of darkness.

The defending forces were ill-prepared and outnumbered: a quickly assembled group of five hundred reservist militia, aided by the civilian population. Yet the Battle of Fishguard, little more a few skirmishes, was over in two days with the French troops making an unconditional surrender.

Once they had landed discipline had broken down amongst the French troops as they ransacked local farms, looted, and grew intoxicated. Was this why they were so easily defeated? No, it was all down to Jemima.

Jemima Nicholas was a cobbler in Fishguard who led a group of women, armed only with pitchforks, against the French. One story describes Jemima single-handedly rounding up twelve French soldiers and holding them captive overnight in a church at Strumble Head. Another has the Welsh women in their traditional red cloaks and steep crowned black hats marching up and down the cliffs until nightfall, and the inebriated soldiers mistaking them for British Redcoats and thinking themselves outnumbered. Instantly demoralised, they capitulated.

Whatever the finer details, the government concurred that Jemima had taken a brave stand against the French. She was awarded an annual pension of five pounds for helping to defeat the invasion.

Subsequently known as Jemima Fawr, Jemima the Great, Fishguard’s heroine was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary. There was no headstone at the time, but in 1897 a stone was erected by public subscription collected at a centenary banquet. It records rather quaintly that,

She died in the main street July 1832,

Aged 82 years.

At the date of the invasion she

Was 47 years old, and

Lived 35 years after the event.

Jemima’s grave, outside St. Mary’s, Fishguard

A sign above the Royal Oak pub in Fishguard records that the peace treaty was signed there, following the last invasion of Britain.

My friends were reluctant to linger in the graveyard, but were eager to celebrate the signing of the peace treaty where it took place – at the Royal Oak pub in Fishguard

In 1997, at the bicentenary, seventy-seven local people embroidered the Last Invasion Tapestry employing the same techniques as those used for the Bayeaux Tapestry.

A pastoral scene before the French soldiers arrive.

…and word spreads that they are coming closer.

But Jemima, equipped with only a pitchfork, is more than a match for the French soldiers…

…they will rue the day they invaded Fishguard.

Jemima and the other Welsh women in their red cloaks and black hats march up and down until nightfall…

… the inebriated French soldiers mistake them for Redcoats, lay down their arms…

…and prepare to march to prison.
The French are defeated. Hurrah for Jemima!

You can find the tapestry of the Last Invasion in the Fishguard library. And if you want to contrast it with the Bayeaux Tapestry of the Norman Invasion, there is no need to go to Bayeaux. Reading Museum has a perfect copy of the latter and no jostling crowds.

Sellar and Yeatman, 1066 and All That
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 12^th June 1667

A Grave which makes me Smile: Michael Bond

By Gravedigger

On May 7, 2023

In Happy Endings, Writers

The graves of those taken too young are always painful. Heart-breaking too are those recalling lives which have been difficult, troubled, unhappy. But for those who have led a long life, loved, and been loved, whose passage through the world has known shared happiness, the sadness is mitigated, and when their stones speak with a gentle humour they make me smile.

Michael Bond (1926-2018) first introduced us to A Bear Called Paddington in 1958. His inspiration was a small bear whom he saw seated alone on the shelf of a London department store one Christmas Eve. Feeling sorry for the forlorn bear he bought him and gave him to his wife as a Christmas present. They named the bear Paddington after the nearby railway station and Bond began drafting a story about him.

Paddington’s Aunt Lucy had sent him to London from “darkest Peru” when she moved to the Home for Retired Bears. He had arrived as a stowaway and the Brown family found him sitting disconsolately on his suitcase near the lost property office at Paddington Station. Around his neck he wore a luggage label written by his aunt, “Please look after this bear. Thank you.” In his suitcase was the remains of a jar of marmalade which had sustained him during his voyage.

Bond explained that his inspiration came from his war time memories of refugee and evacuee children at London stations wearing similar labels bearing their names and addresses and clutching small suitcases containing their few possessions. Paddington too was a refugee and Bond received many poignant letters from child immigrants telling him about their new life in England.

Aunt Lucy had taught Paddington perfect English, impeccable manners, and a clear-eyed understanding of the difference between right and wrong. He was not afraid to, politely, challenge authority when he considered that authority was in error, nor to express his disapproval of wrongdoing with a “hard stare.” Paddington was kind, loving, charming and upright. Filled with enthusiasm and optimism, he always tried to do the right thing notwithstanding a tendency to be disaster prone.

The Browns, whom Bond modelled on his own happy childhood family, adopted Paddington, and as his story unfolds he writes letters and postcards to Aunt Lucy about his life in London.

Bond continued to write about Paddington for many years. The books were translated into forty languages and sold thirty-five million copies around the world bringing delight to children and adults alike.

When Bond and his wife separated they decided on joint custody of the bear, and he described how they would phone each other up and say, “He feels like coming to you now.”

In 2000 a bronze statue of Paddington was erected on Platform One at the station. Parents take photographs of their children, often holding one of Paddington’s favourite marmalade sandwiches, standing beside the bear; unaccompanied adults pat him surreptiously as they pass.When Michael Bond died in 2017 the statue almost disappeared beneath the welter of flowers, cards, notes written on luggage labels, and jars of marmalade.

Bond is buried in Paddington Old Cemetery beneath a stone bearing the appropriate legend,

Please look after this bear. Thank you.

for Paddington Bear and his creator were said to be very much alike.

Michael Bond’s grave at Paddington Old Cemetery, seldom seen without some Paddington memorabilia, often left by children

The Evacuees

By Gravedigger

On February 17, 2022

In Children, Happy Endings

The village of Mells in Somerset is a box of delights boasting a tythe barn, church and inn dating from the fifteenth century, an Elizabethan manor house, an eighteenth-century lockup, a war memorial designed by Lutyens, a sparkling brook and a community café. The terraced houses of medieval New Street lead to St. Andrew’s church which houses a fine collection of art by Gill, Burne-Jones, William Morris, Munnings and William Nicholson. The church yard plays host to a grand collection of memorials to famous people.

But the grave I always visit is a modest, unostentatious stone beside the north wall; a little bit overgrown, it bears the names of Bert and Amy Perry who died in the 1960s. Unlike most stones it was erected not by children or grandchildren but by six men whose names also appear on the stone: Alec McAllister, Fred Barnett, Eric Bounds, Colin Gilbert, Roy Bellion, and David Grey, and above their names a simple message:

“We thank them for their kindness and care during World War Two.
With love from the evacuees”

It has never surprised me that children evacuated from their homes during the London bombings often recount unhappy experiences: far from parents and familiar surroundings, sometimes foisted on host families who did not want them, on occasion subjected to harsh treatment. But this simple stone sings with happiness and I find it easy to imagine the six lads discovering the countryside, rambling through the fields, attending (perhaps reluctantly) the village school, exploring the Mells River and the ruins of Fussells’ Iron Works, and returning at the end of the day to the comforting care of the Perrys. They must have been an exceptional couple, welcoming not one but six boys into their home and lives. I found their story even more remarkable when I discovered that the evacuees were never destined for Mells. They were meant to go to Devizes and arrived in Mells due to an administrative miscalculation, their hosts then completely unprepared for their sudden arrival.

A few years ago, as I crossed the churchyard I spotted a new grave, but the name, Alec E. McAllister, was one I recognised. Erected by a loving family, the inscription explained the familiarity :

“Evacuated here as a London boy,
resting here as a true Mells man.”

I wondered if Alec McAllister had met his future wife in the village primary school all those years ago or on a visit in later years to the kindly Perrys. I had no need of the answer; the touching story told by the two graves was enough .

Come with me into the graveyard, all human life is here

Category: Happy Endings

Jemima Nicholas, The Welsh Heroine, Scourge of the French Invaders

A Grave which makes me Smile: Michael Bond

The Evacuees