Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

  ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go wandering off on your own, Rosemary. Keep to the paths.’ My mother could not understand my delight in being in the old cemetery, with its massive black, white or grey carved angels peering down at the people who stared up at them. The cheeky cherubim on children’s graves, smiling at the grief of bereaved parents never seemed quite right to me, though I smiled back at their chubby little faces, so perhaps that was the point. The graveyard surrounded our little church, spreading out and encroaching on the cornfields behind. The newly formed ‘Friends of St Ethelburga’s’, including my mum and me, arrived each weekend, carefully clipping back the grass, restoring the fallen headstones and replacing the grave borders. Neat flowerbeds now edged the path up to the West door and soon they would be starting on the next section. But the unkempt expanse to the north, they had agreed to leave. They said it was because they wanted a part of the church