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Nancy Millar
is known as Canada's Cheerful Tombstone Tourist. She's traveled
all over the country exploring graveyards and talking to people,
the result of which is Once Upon A Tomb, a history of Canada from
the back end, as it were. It's history as she found it in graveyards.
This summer, she traveled to England and of course, took time
to visit some graveyards there. In fact, she would be there still
if her family hadn't expected her home. There are so many graveyards,
so many big names buried in big places, so much history in every
corner, that she couldn't take it all in. However, she got some
of it, and here's the second installment of her account of a visit
to St. Michael's in the village of Mickleham.
R. B. Bennett
by Nancy Millar
As I mentioned
in my first excerpt, getting there is half the fun.
I knew that
R.B. Bennett, Canada's 11th Prime Minister, was buried in England,
the only Canadian PM buried outside the country, incidentally.
He got mad at Canada, sort of, after being soundly defeated in
the 1935 general elections. Then he lost the leadership of the
Conservative party in 1938, so hurt, disappointed and spurned,
he decided to move to England. His good friend, Lord Beaverbrook,
lived there. That was one attraction for him. Also, he hoped to
get a title and sit in the House of Lords. That offered more respectability
and honour than staying in Canada as a symbol of the worst five
years on record- the Great Depression from 1930-1935.
So he bought
himself a big house in Surrey south of London and settled down
to enjoy hobnobbing with other political and social leaders. He
got the title too; Beaverbrook saw to that, but by 1941 Britain
was fighting for its life. Who had time to wine and dine an old
Canadian prime minister? And by the time the war was won, R.B.
was pretty well lost.
 He
died at home alone on June 27, 1947. Three days later, he was
buried in the churchyard of St. Michael's in the village of Mickleham.
Now, Mickleham
isn't a big place. You have to know your train connections to
get there from Dorking and Guildford and Box Hill and other names
which I probably missed. I thought we were on the right train.
We did go south for quite awhile but after one certain stop when
everyone else got off- that should have been our first clue- we
started going north again. Never mind. We got off at the next
stop and eventually made our way back to meet Andrew Tatham, the
obliging young man who had offered to tour us around.
We went first
to the churchyard in the village of Mickleham. It's a modest church,
nice but not flashy. So is Bennett's grave– nice but not
flashy. The information that he was Viscount of Mickleham, Calgary
and Hopewell is carved into the end of his limestone sarcophagus,
plus the words "A former prime minister of Canada,"
but that's about it for splendor. We also had a look at the mansion
R.B. used to own. It's called Juniper Hill and has plenty of splendor,
at least from the outside. According to Andrew, however, it was
stripped of some of its splendor by various owners in the past,
and only this year is being brought back to some of its glory
by a new owner, a dot-com businessman from London.
Time then
for lunch so we retired to the fairly famous country pub called
The Running Horses, right across the street from the church cemetery.
There my sister and I each ordered a chip butty. You have to have
one, Andrew said. They're famous. So we did, and we're still talking
about it. A chip butty is a French fry sandwich. You take two
pieces of bread, you butter each one, you pile as many chips as
possible on the bottom slice, and then you hold them in place
with the top slice. That's a chip butty. There's no way you can
get your mouth around it, so most folk, I think, simply eat a
bunch of the fries until the butty is more manageable. Then, I
guess, they eat the whole thing, bread, butter, grease, French
fries and all. It was a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience
but before I could get too uppity about our wonderful Canadian
diets, I remembered poutine.
Andrew pointed
out later that the local paper had mentioned R.B. the day we were
there. We were there June 27, you see, 54 years to the day after
R.B. had died.
Coming
soon from Nancy Millar... Lady MacDonald, a continuation of Nancy's
journey to England's cemeteries.
Nancy
Millar's books about graveyards include Remember Me As You
Pass By, (stories from Alberta graveyards) and Once Upon A
Tomb (stories from Canadian graveyards.) Both are a combination
of history, story and travel. They are available from many
bookstores, see the Links provided, or from Deadwood Distribution,
e-mail nemillar@shaw.ca.
Her other books include Once Upon A Wedding - Canadian history
through actual weddings; The Famous Five: Emily Murphy and
the Case of the Missing Persons, and Once Upon An Outhouse.
Also available from Deadwood. |
A
Graveyard Tale Closer to Home
Highgate
The
Titanic Cemetery
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