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.

Il mio problema è il contenuto che ha deciso di raccontare per ogni cimitero: non ha sempre scelto i personaggi più importanti, o le caratteristiche peculiari di un luogo. Here, that seems particularly true of the chapters set in Dublin and – particularly – Belfast, where the ‘dark romance’ of the paramilitary dead colours the city ‘like some hidden pigment just outside the visible spectrum’. To the taphophile - a lover of graves- Sheridan’s lair is the equivalent of a rare bird to the twitcher.It also allowed me to look at the tombstones from a perspective of legacies and remembrance they represent. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. He visits the grave of Amelia Edwards, a name which means nothing to most of us but without her, none of us might have heard of Flinders Petrie, the great Egyptologist and archaeologist. I’m delighted to be starting off the blog this year with a review of a book I got for my Christmas and what a brilliant book it was – A Tomb With A View.

What is the remarkable truth about Phoebe Hessel, who disguised herself as a man to fight alongside her sweetheart, and went on to live in the reigns of five monarchs? Ross takes us from Flanders Fields to the Victorian garden cemeteries to the divided cemeteries of Belfast and strange ossuaries in Rothwell and Hythe. Enter a grave new world in this acclaimed book as Peter Ross uncovers the stories and glories of graveyards.Peter Ross's books are all really good and this one is a bit different but also wonderfully written and informative. Cemeteries have long been a focus for visits to the famous but – thanks to knowledgeable guides – the obscure or less famous are now also visited. Moving to read that if remains of Canadian soldiers are identified and buried in a CWGC, they are removed from the Vimy Memorial. It "digs" under the surface to tell lost of stories and the stories of those living and dead in them.

I expected to race through this book as the subject matter fascinates me however I struggled at times as the book reads as a wall of text with little room for the personalities of the people spoken to or of Ross himself. What made Bob Reinhardt – who lives in the US – set up Friends of Warriston Cemetery and become so obsessed with the place that he has taken around 60,000 photos of it and other Edinburgh burial grounds? Walking with the Easter Sunday parade to the Republican plot at Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery, Ross spots a little girl outside the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, banging gleefully on her dialysis machine as the marchers pass by, honouring the dead of the 1916 Easter Rising with flutes, drums and replica uniforms and rifles. We have been walking in cemeteries here and abroad for many years – they provide an immediate condensation of their local histories and cultures and a usually deserted place to walk in an urban setting. He also mentions some new phenomena: the rise of green undertakers (natural burial) and the new orientation of graveyards as marriage avenues.Norman Robbins, one of Amateur Theatre's most popular authors, wrote his first stage show almost 60 years ago whilst working for the Yorkshire Evening Post. 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.