Monochrome lives

As my London journeys progress, it becomes increasingly evident to me that each trip seems to develop its own themes contrary to any conscious intention of mine.  This could be an effect of the particular terrain covered on the day or external factors such as weather, time of day etc, or it could be due entirely to chance.  Whatever the reason, I find that certain connections seem to form before my very eyes - as Peter Ackroyd wrote in the introduction to Faux Amis "We know everything in the city connects.  Nothing possesses a single or exclusive life."

I have already identified a sporting theme in this journey but running alongside this is a darker narrative dealing with remembrance and death.  At the entrance to a small park, I chance upon a war memorial laden with poppy wreaths.  Turning onto the main road shortly afterwards I come across a mountain of floral tributes heaped at the side of the road - the site of some unknown traffic accident involving a lover of Carlsberg lager.  Moments later I look up and spot a sign for a funeral director.....

Working my way up the map, at the top of the hill I turn off the road into Chingford Mount Cemetery, a gloriously over-the-top resting place for the dead of the parish, the serried rows of graves decked out in a riot of flowers, stuffed toys and associated memorabilia.  Many of the graves sport photographs of the dead, forever suspended in some moment from happier days, looking out accusingly at the living.  The whole effect is one of rampant sentimentality, touching at first - all those lives snuffed out or cut tragically short, still mourned.  All the outpouring of grief made concrete in words and objects.  But after a while, I begin to feel slightly uneasy, as though I am intruding on some private moment of grief, like a stranger at a funeral.

When I get home, I remember having read about this place before. In Lights Out for the Territory, Iain Sinclair's multi-layered, psychogeographic narrative of walking the streets of London, there is a chapter about the funeral of gangster Ronnie Kray and his subsequent burial in this very cemetery, accompanied by a grotesquely overblown and sentimental display of mourning

 "the sacrifice of thousands of carnations, pink and white and sclerotic.  Puce roses sweating with shame.  Eggy bundles of lilies, pinched at the waists by purple ribbons.  Wreaths like the wheels of articulated lorries.  Hearts and hoops and American flags....Monochrome lives recalled in hot flushes of colour"   

It was a relief to leave the cemetery and head back into the suburban streets, turning my gaze upwards for a change to take in the cleansing expanse of the sky......