Maudlin Britain overrun with mourning and makeshift shrines

This article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Fluff-fluff. The world has not known a better cat…

I hope you don’t mind my crudely jamming my grief into your day like this. After all, the passing of a much-loved (but entirely-fictional-for-the-purposes-of-this-column) cat is no easy emotion to deal with. I also didn’t have a suitable place to erect a shrine. All the local park benches had been taken…

In many ways, our ability to grieve publicly had been one of the welcome changes of the past decade, but not so our newfound habit of turning any public space into a modern ubi sunt. Makeshift memorials are turning up everywhere. You can’t walk a mile without hitting a pool of candles marking a passing, flowers left by some tricky road junction, or a wreath affixed to a lamppost where a family pet left the earthly realm. People too are commemorated in some of the oddest ways in the strangest places. Park benches are now sites of religious pilgrimage turning us into a nation of perpetual mourners.

It all began simply enough. At some point, councils started to allow locals to adopt public seats with an engraved plate marking the spot’s significance to those who had passed. Back in 2002, Alan Coren even wrote a sketch for The Times about a meeting of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority who were deciding if they would stop this practice, which was said to be depressing ramblers, out to enjoy the fresh air, only to be constantly reminded of somebody’s dead aunt or uncle (maybe both if the tragedy was particularly profound) who also used to enjoy the fresh air. 

Coren was not on the side of the ramblers for whom the sight of these memorials meant “the lark trills a bum note, the snail sucks in its head, and the Sun clouds over into glum Celtric twilight”. Coren argued that “a nice brass plaque is itself something of a hedge againt […] mortality”.

Coren clearly didn’t know what hell such tolerance would unleash. He also didn’t record the decision of the Authority, who must have had greater concerns than the feelings of a few maudlin walkers sobbing into their breathable Gortex handkerchiefs. The bench plaque scheme has since been extended. You can now “Sponsor a Gate” for £600 for 10 years.

Isn’t it all getting a bit too much? What began with a tasteful plaque became the habit of leaving flowers on a seat. Then came the wreaths, the cards, the hand-written notes (I hope the departed took their reading glasses with them). Then came the mementos, the bric-a-brack, the scarves and hats, the sweets, the chocolates, and the bottles of some favourite drink. Then there are the helium balloons on ribbons, the plastic butterflies, the little toys, and most affecting of all, the photos of some better times with aunt/uncle/granny/granddad (delete where appropriately non-departed). Such touching tableaus, all as brightly morbid as the old Dutch masters treated their memento mori replete with skulls and rotting fish and fruit, are lastly embellished by ruddy great industrial zip-ties that means there’s no way to remove any of this tat from the bench.

What is the idling pedestrian meant to do if they want a rest? Sit on a shrine? Get pricked by an immovable circle of holly? Or carry a pair of cable nippers to make room to sit down? That’s assuming, of course, you have the mental and emotional strength to dismantle these high altars to grief.

How do we put an end to this madness? When, indeed, did it all begin?

As far as I can tell, it’s a very modern development. The Times has one of the few searchable archives available to the public, which go back hundreds of years. These metrics are hardly scientific but perhaps it’s unsurprising that the first use of the phrase “came to lay flowers” when not talking about a grave happened as recently as April 1998, when author Marcus Binney, wrote an article titled “Diana’s Fountain – The Biggest in Britain”. It was used again, later that year, when Ben MacIntyre wrote from Paris about the aftermath of Diana’s death. “Mourners gather at site of fatal crash to pay homage” was the title of the article.

This confirms a hunch that our modern habit of these overt displays of sentiment do indeed, go back to the death of Diana. Suddenly it became acceptable to turn any landmark, distinguished or not, into a shrine. It’s probably no coincidence that Coren noted this trend in his article just four years later.

The habit has now become an epidemic of mourning, as if grief loosened its shackles to consume us in its morbid miasma. Death no longer knows its place as the public space has now become a space for constant mourning. Is it healthy? I’m not so sure. There’s always sadness around graveyards that has little to do with the dead and everything to do with the living; the lost, lonely, often desperate people who spend hours sitting in their cars, watching over the last resting place of loved ones. There’s sadness too in the graves that continue to be covered in ornate and expensive tributes long after a person has gone. Respectful, certainly, but perhaps tinged with the sadness of people struggling to move on.

Such enduring love is entirely understandable but at least that grief is contained in its natural place. Growing into an adult, at whatever age, is accompanied by the numbing struggle as we cope with our losses; measuring our need to move on against the love that remains with us. Less, healthy, is when grief gets in the way of living. 

Maybe, then, we can politely ask that death be put back in its proper place so that our public seating can be given back to the living. Some of us would like to sit down without feeling like we’re disturbing the dead. 

@DavidWaywell

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life