Many Saturdays over this winter have I attempted to get some sun on the scene that is St George's Field - the cemetery at the University of Leeds - in order to get some good photos to accompany my thesis. And again this Saturday it was a dreary Northern sky overlooking the campus. However, I did manage to get all the photos I had planned to get except one, a nice clear image of the sculpture of James Schofield's helmet on the firemen's memorial near the gatehouse of the cemetery. The photo below was taken on a previous trip.*
Schofield died in the Dark Arches Fire of 1892. The Dark Arches are located near the rail station in Leeds. Apparently there were 100,000 mourners at his funeral.
One of the tasks I'd set myself was to photo all the entrance/exists to the cemetery, however I won't be including all of them in this blog, but rather some of the other phenomenon I came across: those things I wasn't expecting to encounter, like this rack of old paint, waiting to be chucked out along with much other rubbish. This entrance to the cemetery is located near the Maintenance building and behind the Old Mining Building. You would only find this entrance from the outside direction if you were snooping (as is my wont), because it is really well hidden.
At one point I spotted lots of magpies under this tree. When I got there I found they had been eating the apples that were strewn over the floor beneath. Most of the apples were rotten, but many looked fine and must have survived in the cold weather.
I came across this memorial for the first time. Apologies for the poor image, but it says:
"I don't care to belong to a club
that accepts people
like me as members"
Groucho Marks
Charlie Velu 1986-2010
I've never come across the memorial before. I can't seem to find any information on the university website or even on google. I guess, because of his age, he had been a student at the university.
The memorial that I am mostly interested in is this one, which I have previously written about. The twin sister of Pauline Mavis White, Christine Bairstow, has been in correspondence with the university over the moving of her sister's gravestone. Even as recently as 2008 there are articles in the Yorkshire Evening Post: Leeds pensioner begs university to mark sister's grave
I have visited this memorial a good few times over the past couple of years. Today I managed to get a good photo, which included some recently left red roses. So someone, probably her sister, still tends the memorial.
My trip to the cemetery was psychogeographically interesting as it almost always is. I've included this final photo because despite earlier saying it wasn't sunny, I note some beams of sunlight filtering through the top of my image.
*If anyone has a good crisp image of the helmet and would be happy to share it with me, that would be great. Thanks.
Links:
An Island of Heterotopia
St Georges Field, University of Leeds
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy by Ian Dury
No comments:
Post a Comment