Well, today didn't really go as planned and was a little (OK, maybe a lot) disappointing. Mum and I, along with a reluctant Sophie, went off down to Kent to see if I could find the graves of my great great grandparents who were buried at St Mary's Church in Stone. I was full of hope and optimism as the grave would have been dated 1919 and surely, I imagined, it would be legible. I was hoping to find birth dates on the grave and therefore solve a big mystery.
The reality, however, was that I found no trace of the grave so either my great great grandparents didn't have a headstone, or the one they had had weathered away (hard to believe). I was bitterly disappointed but we went off to Stone Cemetery again in the vain hope we might find them there, but no luck. I knew deep down they couldn't have been there as they weren't on the burial records so we said a quick hello to Frederick and Fanny and then drove off to Watling Street Cemetery to find the grave of my great grandmother, Ethel.
My luck was really out today as we couldn't find that one either and I was coming to the sad conclusion that maybe my relatives just couldn't afford a decent headstone to mark their graves. My great grandmother had died in 1917 when the first world war was raging and had left about 12 children so maybe the money just wasn't there to spend on a headstone.
We drove to Nan's flat in the rain feeling as miserable as the weather and had lunch. I'd planned on taking her to Eynesford for a cup of tea but the weather had turned nasty so that plan was postponed. She was very surprised to see us and after having something to eat, Sophie and I ventured back to the graveyard at St Mary's Church to see if we could have another look and to write down an inscription that we saw on a grave that included the name Collins. However, the recent rain had made the words much harder to read (typical!) so after wandering around and scaring ourselves silly we admitted defeat and headed back to pick mum up for the journey home.
Oh well...at least the drive was fast and problem-free!!
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