Read on Twitter
A THREAD. One often thinks of the internet as all-seeing & all-knowing, but it really isn’t. After lunch today I went for a long & reflective walk around Earlsfield, where I live, & en route I explored Wandsworth Cemetery. It was a sad, beautiful & fascinating exploration. (1/6)
Google ‘boxer Bertie Lewis’ & you won’t find much, because he died 30 years before the internet was a daily staple. But here he lies, his grave clearly tended regularly. By his elderly widow perhaps? Or by his children, themselves now in late middle age? I know not. Do you? (2/6)
Jazz musician Paul Bonner lies not far away, & Google reaches him, for he died not quite 10 years ago. (3/6)
So it is that I, who know almost nothing of jazz, have learned that Paul Bonner was a founder member of the Fallen Angels, who perform still; & here he is, trumpeting away, sax player Tony ‘Rico’ Richardson looking on. Thank you, Google. (4/6)
There are war graves in Wandsworth Cemetery: those of soldiers transported, injured, from WW1 & WW2 battlefields to the 3rd London General Hospital, which occupied the nearby Royal Victoria Patriotic School, built in the 1850s as an orphans’ asylum, now swanky flats (pic). (5/6)
Altogether, 590 WW1 & WW2 soldiers lie buried in Wandsworth Cemetery, hailing from all over the Commonwealth, & their graves lie scattered among those of thousands of civilians. Here are the headstones of 4 brave such lads, taken far too soon. #RIP #GoForAChristmasWalk (6/6)
