Okay, so it’s been far too long, I wish I could say I’ve been doing anything other than living through a global pandemic (the crisis I was born for! Sitting in the house, watching box sets and eating my body weight in chocolate – perfect. Now if it’d involved fast zombies or any sort of survival skills, then I’d be in real trouble.

So this is what I’ve been doing with my pandemic time. Trying to save a cemetery. Well, not save exactly, more trying to make sure it doesn’t fall down as much or as quickly.

So it started about a year ago (ages in the grand scheme of how 2020 is going) when Lorn and I went on a tour of Cathcart Cemetery. Despite it only being along the road I’d never really visited before.

It’s hard to describe. Because it’s a garden cemetery (an emerging research interest of mine – but more of that to come), you could say it is overgrown, and you’d be wrong. Wild. It’s wild and untamed – not so great when you’re a cemetery with headstones (but more on that). A mature woodland is I believe what’s it’s called. There’s lots of self-seeding trees (I can’t wait for the archives to open I want to hunt down the original planting scheme). Ivy everywhere. – much to the detriment of the stones. And a lot of broken and fallen headstones – some of that is natural (blame it on the ivy); some of it was done by the Cooncil to preempt the stones falling and a little was done deliberately (more on that to come too) – okay, the Cemetery is my new obsession.

Okay, so a year or so ago, go along to a tour, hosted by Roger Guthrie from the Alexander Thomson Society – ‘raconteur’ in the best Glasgow style. When he decides to write his book at the machinations of the Glasgow City Council, he’s got a best seller on this hands. Anyway, guy stands up at the end, says they’re trying to start a Friends Group up because the cemetery is in a bit a state and who wants to join him. Emails were exchanged.

Cue a year later and here’s a potted history of where we are:

• I’m now co-chair of the group (our chair/secretary/whatever sadly had to step back for a bit.
• I’ve had a couple of successful meetings with East Renfrewshire Cooncil- and now we’re part way through a cemetery inspection. What it’s going to be like for Cooncils post-Covid is anyone’s guess, but I bet cemeteries won’t be on the top of their list.
• We set up a bank and paypal account with some cooncil funding
• I ran, in partnership with the Hampden Collection, a semi-successful evening about the pioneering footballers who are buried there as part of the To Absent Friends Festival
• I know far too much about the history of football
• We found a suffragette! And she’s a cracker. One of the few women who actually died as a result of her activism. She’s magnificent.
• We’ve had a lot of publicity surrounding the book ‘A Tomb with a View’ written by local resident and award winning journalist Peter Ross. He lives up the road from the Cemetery the publicity has been great for us and as a result
• I was interviewed by BBC Scotland Radio Good Morning Scotland (Ohhh get her). Nan and I had a lovely time with Pauline McLean and other than sounding like Susan Calman and ‘sounding very Scottish’ I thought it went well.
• We officially became part of the Scottish Civic Trust’s My Place mentoring scheme. I met with their man, Jamie during lockdown. None of us are heritage people (a retired quantity surveyor, an IT person, a railway engineer, another awarding winning journalist and me) I can’t wait to get that started (bloody covid)
• Jonathan did a very successful online tour of the place. We’re hoping to do it again sometime soon.
• On Hallowe’n we’re running another talk on Victorian death traditions with a young anatomist who got in touch after hearing about Henria. We’ve been selling tickets for this one – nearly £200 – that’ll do
• I put in my first funding application in today. I think I missed the deadline for October, so I’ll probably have to wait until March/April 2021 before I hear anything! It’s to get the tours started up again.
• Still, we’re building a website and someone from the Daily Record wants to do a piece on that – taphophiles eh?

So that’s a potted history of where I’m at at the moment. I feel this blog has a new purpose – to document this process. Still chasing a PhD, I wonder if this could be my research topic – saving a Cemetery.