Dead Interesting

My camera is dead.
It served me for many years, so perhaps it was time for her to rest, but I am missing it badly. My old mobile phone is doing its best to help me in my photographic frenzy, putting up with my constant moaning about wanting an iPhone, and these tiny pixelated pictures are the result.

I know, the Instagram app will have to wait.

Here in London, Spring is timidly approaching: every sunny day is a celebration, because deep down you know that it is unlikely to last. Therefore you guys may wonder why, on a glorious Sunday afternoon like this, Hubby and I decided to pay a visit to Highgate Cemetery. Well, it wasn't to bury the camera of course (I am not that sentimental!) but to take advantage of the very interested guided tours and to learn something about London's Victorian era. Behind the melancholic look of worn down gravestones and angels dressed in ivy, and beyond Death casting its grim reminder to us all, a whole distant era is revealed. For example, did you know that, in 19th century, funerals were an out-and-out business? The reason being not one of the most fortunate; the population had increased and, due to poor hygienic conditions, mortality rate followed suit. Death was an everyday business, as to even dictate fashion in - black - dresses, ways of burial, tombs shape and size, you name it. Of course nowadays you don't go to a wedding wearing the same dress twice; back then, keeping a funeral dress in the house was bad luck.

A cemetery on a spring day leaves little room for philosophic contemplation and the fascinating investigation of the after-life symbolic language takes over: an angel with a torch turned over means differently from another with raised hands; pyramids and obelisks refer to the English interest towards the - conquered - ancient empires and the customs and traditions of the people in the colonies. The West Cemetery, where the guided tours take place, has remarkable examples of funerary architecture, for example a rotunda surrounding a magnificent tree that has been there for at least nine hundred years, and has probably seen it all.
Highgate Cemetery was even in competition with other six burial places, and I was quite impressed to discover that they were called "The Magnificent Seven". Given that I can't help drawing comparisons between London and my birthplace, Rome, I immediately made a connection with our Seven Hills - and, actually, the slope to get from Archway station to the cemetery is not too bad indeed. The popularity of a cemetery didn't really depend on its rates, but on its guests; with its peaceful surroundings and impeccable burial service, Highgate won them all.

Beyond any political thought, who wouldn't stop in awe in front of Karl Marx's grave? He even has - dead - people around who expressly arranged for being buried at close range to him. The pictured one is just a common bloke who happens to be in front of Marx. Together, they make the famous duo Marks&Spencer (I'd like to claim the authorship of this fantastic joke, but in fact I have stolen it from my husband).

Going further on the list, I was quite pleased to find Lieutenant James Holman, better known as The Blind Traveller: back on my MA Curating Course (remember this?), our tutor mentioned his book in relation to perception; a blind account of travels around the world gives a different idea of what we give for granted, and that's exactly what an exhibition should do. In Victorian times, Lieutenant Holman had people queuing to pay respect to his resting place. Shame his gravestone is almost invisible now but, thanks to The Friends of Highgate Cemetery, we will always know where he is.

It was thanks to the work of volunteers that the cemetery, which fell into decline from the 30s to the 70s, was brought back to its splendour after years and years of neglect, wild parties and tombs-lifting. Of course their activities continue today and, after so much research and delving into the past, the stories they have to tell really are fascinating. One oddity: on the way back to the West wing entrance, not far from Faraday's grave, there is a house right in the cemetery's premises. Either because of a great admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright or an unbelievable nonchalance for privacy, it's all glass and concrete: the living spying on the dead and vice-versa. While our group timidly approached, strangely dressed figures were wandering behind the windows, minding their own business. The property is for sale and, as the Sunday Times goes, "morbid sense of humour is a must."