Taro's Travels

The granite blocks have been squared and polished.  The low wrought iron fence, now gently rusting, has been set to ensure that visitors approach from the pebbled main circuit via the short flagstoned walk and not over the lawn.  The graven inscription has been gilded, and the oversized head, two feet in height or more, has been cast in bronze.  Roses, wrapped in crepe and plastic, sit in water in a container at the base of the monument.

It's evident that a fair few workers have toiled, united, to ensure that the grandest of graves in the eastern part of Highgate Cemetery is that of Karl Marx and the four others who share his plot.

A couple of feet behind Marx, what order there is gives way to an ever-encroaching tangle of ivy, old trees whose gnarled roots keep the earth unquiet, and brambled canes that bear blackberries the colour of old blood.  Paths criss-cross the forest past gravestones with facades weathered beyond recognition, and forgotten memorials swallowed by vegetation.  There are newer graves too, there, crammed into what space remains. 

The western part of Highgate Cemetery, which reportedly has a horror movie feel, is inaccessible to the general public - you can only enter on tour, and all places were booked out so I've not seen it.  Both sides hold a large number of ex-people who've achieved renown in their particular field, be it medicine, writing, engineering, art, or politics.  And as a tourist attraction it's interesting to visit, but I wonder a little at the voyeurism of it.  Isn't the concept of those Hollywood tours which allow you to eyeball where Hollywood stars live or lived a little creepy?  And isn't eyeballing gravestones for amusement in what is still a working graveyard even creepier?  Yet despite that I still hope to visit the western cemetery.

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
Douglas Adams
Writer
1952-2001