For a change of pace
today we went to Golders Green Crematorium to look for the graves of a few
famous people. It turned into a
remarkable visit. First a little about
the place, you knew this was coming. The
place was established in 1902 by the Founder of the Cremation Society of
England. Since then there have been over
300,000 cremations performed here. There
are two chapels at the place where funerals are performed. There were two funerals in progress while we
visited. Many of the people cremated
here are buried elsewhere. The people
interred here that we wanted to see were: Sigmund Freud, Peter Sellers, Bram
Stoker, Keith Moon and Anna Pavlova.
We were directed to
the office to get a map of the place and to see if we could get into some of
the closed columbarium. When we asked the
lady at the desk for the map she said she would call Eric, the maintenance man
who can let us into the rooms where the famous people are kept. Sue asked how often people ask to see these
columbarium? She said once or twice a
day! I was thinking great, we are going
to get a maintenance guy who has been pulled away from work to show two goofy
Americans around, and he won’t be happy.
Boy was I wrong. Eric Willis, the
maintenance man was worth the trip! Eric
is an unofficial tour guide. He has
stories about the famous people and some of the people that come to visit. If you think we are nuts (and why wouldn’t
you) wait until you hear about a couple of the other visitors.
The first stop was to
see the Bram Stoker’s casket. Eric
unlocked the door with a key from a massive collection of keys. Somehow he knows which one to use. Stoker was on the third floor. The room probably had over 100 caskets and
urns of all different types. Eric had information
and photos in the room to show us about Stoker.
Next we went to see where Sigmund Freud used to be down on the first
floor. Freud’s urn had been on a plinth
in the center of a room. He was moved to
another location so that other family members’ ashes could be placed around
Sigmund’s spot. We went to another
columbarium to see Sigmund. It turns out
that Sigmund’s ashes are not here. On
New Year’s Eve this year someone tried to break in and steal Freud’s ashes, or
more likely the urn the ashes were kept in.
They broke the urn containing the ashes.
The urn was Italian from 300BC.
The urn had been given to Freud by the grandniece of Napoleon. Napoleon himself had owned the urn. So the damaged urn is being repaired, and in
the interim the ashes are not on site.
The family doesn’t want photos of the empty plinth taken, as it is like
an empty grave. So Eric has a photo of the
urn before the damage that I could photograph.
Freud is the “person” most visited at the Crematorium. Lucian Freud, a grandson of Sigmund was an
artist and two of his paintings are on the 1001 list, and we’ve seen both. How about that? Next Eric took us to see the urn of Anna
Pavlova a famous ballerina. Eric showed
us photographs of the paintings he has made of Anna. He is quite the artist. He told us a story about a Russian ballerina
who came to visit the ashes. She was
very moved, standing in front of the urn crying (another artist you know). Eric gave her copies of some of the photos
and information that he had accumulated about Ms. Pavlova. He also gave her a poem he had written about
the ballerina. He recited the poem for
us, and what do I know, but it was pretty good, it rhymed. Anyway this ballerina returned to Russia and
sent Eric a copy of a newspaper with an article about her visit. The article mentions Eric, and it has his
poem in Russian. Eric was worth the trip
all by himself. Eric then took us to
another room where there is a computer display that you can look up information
on people who have been cremated at this site.
There is a lady who visits at least yearly WHO is a big fan of Keith
Moon, the drummer for the WHO (see what I did there?) who died in a drug
overdose in 1978 at the age of 32. She
has paid to keep his information in this display and a plaque on the wall above
the display. Keith’s ashes were
scattered in the lawn of the Crematorium, where over 150,000 others ashes have
been scattered. We didn’t walk out into
the lawn. He then told us where Peter
Sellers ashes are buried. They are under
a rose bush in one of the many rose gardens.
He told us to look for another rose bush next to Sellers’ that has a
sign that says Reserved. An American
lady who visits the place frequently, has paid to reserve this spot so that
when she dies she can be “an arm’s length” from Sellers when she is buried. I told you there a people goofier than us, if
you can believe it.
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