Little shrines and memorials

Back in the old days when everyone knew their place except for the very rich - who happened to own all places, lock, stock and barrel so could do whatever they liked with them - shrines in memory of the deceased were confined to churches, churchyards and public benches.  

Nowadays little shrines and memorials are cropping up all over the place. I see more and more on my WMN walks and wonder if there will come a time when every beautiful viewpoint in the country will have some item or structure of pilgrimage attached to it. Most A-road accident black-spots already have.

For the most part the items placed in memory are impermanent ephemeral things – flowers usually, with some poignant message attached.  

But sometimes you see bigger more permanent memorials. One such sits proud on lonely remote Lilstock Beach – not far from the mighty nuclear generation complex at Hinkley Point on the West Somerset coast.

It takes the form of a big cairn of pebbles in memory of a woman called Molly Worth and also her dog Sylvester. It’s been inaugurated by Molly’s widow Eric, and on a plaque attached to the cairn he has written, “Please put a stone on as you pass by.”

Not many folk go to Lilstock Beach – or, at least, I didn’t think many did because I have rarely seen a soul there – but quite a number must visit judging by the size of this pile of stones.

I couldn’t help but go along with Eric’s wishes and placed a pebble on the cairn wishing all the best for the memory of Molly and for the continued wellbeing – I hoped - of her widowed husband.

What I liked about the cairn was that it was entirely in keeping with the pebble strewn environment of this extraordinary beach and in no way took anything away from the strange, lonely, cobblestone-dominated, remoteness of the place.

Some shrines do. I’ve seen plastic urns, mini-concrete crosses and the like that unfortunately spoil the very place they are meant to consecrate. If such memorials become too commonplace, large and out of keeping there will come a time when people will be forced to apply for planning permission to erect them. Which is the last thing you want to be doing in a time of mourning.