Sarah Barrie’s Lair 2. Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland, June 2019

26 June 2019. McLays Guest House, Renfrew Street, Glasgow

It is wonderful what a cheerful welcome and a good night’s sleep can do. Yesterday I arrived in Glasgow after a crowded Easy Jet flight from sweltering Paris, and met dullness and gloom. This morning at the guesthouse, as I prepare to visit Sarah Barrie’s lair at Bothwell Park Cemetery in Bellshill, everything is bright.

My senses are fine tuned as I stand here in my large upstairs bedroom. There are echoes everywhere, echoes of Bill as well as Sarah. The children’s voices drifting up from the school on the corner of Renfrew Street and Garnet Street – I hear Sarah and her friends in 1920. The young housemaids scampering around making beds and cleaning rooms – one of them is Sarah before her marriage. The full Scottish breakfast – Bill would have eaten this breakfast with gusto and enjoyed a word or two with the French guests at the other tables.

*

Two days ago, in Paris, I was strolling along the cobbled paths of the Père Lachaise Cemetery with a French couple, my friends for twenty years. He became breathless – his lungs trouble him – and he sat down to rest while she and I walked on ahead. I commented on the flowers adorning the crowded graves – fresh (in bouquets or growing in pots); ceramic, and artificial (silk were the most realistic, we agreed) – and I asked her advice on what flowers to take when I visit Sarah’s lair. She said that when she visits her mother’s grave in Brittany, she takes roses because they dry out gracefully. Her father and sister are also buried in the family plot; and there will be room for her brother, but not for her. She will be buried in Corsica next to her husband.

His health is not robust, I thought, so he is likely to die first. Not too soon, I hope.

‘In any event, my family’s remains will one day need to be moved from the grave in Brittany’.  She seemed philosophical about this.

‘An Italian friend told me that in her country, bodies are exhumed after ten years and the bones placed in an ossuary. ‘

‘Yes, that’s true, and it sometimes happens at Père Lachaise. It’s the family’s duty to maintain the plot, and if it falls into disrepair or the lease is over, the bones are moved to the ossuary.’

*

At Glasgow Central Station, I board the ScotRail train and find a seat with a table where I place my sheaf of white roses. The journey to Bellshill will take 17 minutes. I check once again that I have the section and lair number written down.

White roses. Photo: Ann Barrie

I am mentally prepared for the fact that Sarah’s name will have faded on the gravestone – it is, after all, more than eighty years since she died. Sarah was the grandmother Bill’s children never met, and I had asked Charles what he expected I would see.

‘Maybe a big concrete box,’ he replied, ‘with some trim but nothing ostentatious, a simple plaque. Probably obvious weather damage. Lawns kept but no sign of regular visitation by loved ones.’

‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m expecting,’ I said.

*

On arrival at Bellshill, I check with the man in the ticket office that the route I have worked out is a good one. Then I stride forth on the one-mile walk to the cemetery. The route is green and leafy, and helpful locals advise me on shortcuts and the best way to negotiate roundabouts and avoid getting hit by cars speeding onto the A721.

I arrive at Bothwell Park Cemetery with no mishaps, and see lawns, uneven but mown; dirt paths; sturdy trees; and graves, some with protective orange netting around them. Then I encounter a problem. The plan at the cemetery entrance shows alphabetically arranged sections, some very large, but provides no guidance on lair numbers.

There is a fine old house at the entrance to the cemetery, and a brick shed behind it, but no staff to be seen, and so I approach two women who are waiting for their transport home. They tell me the house is in private ownership now and the cemetery staff use the shed. Since there is no-one there right now, I’m best to follow the road to the back of the cemetery where the older graves are.

 I thank the women, and begin walking slowly along this road, stopping to check dates on tombstones. This might take me hours.

A utility vehicle approaches with two men on board and I hail them. ‘I’m looking for a grave in Section O.’

One of the men climbs down. ‘Do you know the number?’

I consult the number written on my forearm. ‘Lair 512. Is it up there?’ I wave my arm toward the back of the cemetery.

He points to my arm and chuckles. ‘That’s the kind of thing I do. How long are you here?’

I explain that I’m a New Zealander and have just spent a month in France, most recently in Marseille and Paris, and now I am staying in Glasgow for three days.’

‘I’ve been in Marseille, in 1998, for the football World Cup.’

‘You’d recognise a lot of changes if you went back’.

‘Nah. I was drunk the whole time, so I don’t remember.’

We chat for a few moments and then I steer him back to the subject at hand. ‘Lair 512?’

‘You won’t find it here. Follow me.’ He leads me to a line of graves near the shed.

*

He locates a number carved into the base of one of the tombstones and counts his way along the lairs. My anticipation mounts. Then he stops at a grassed area. ‘It must be an unmarked grave.’ My shock must have shown on my face because he adds, ‘Perhaps they were poor.’

‘Yes, they were poor.’

‘Here. I’ll pace it out.’ He does so, and points to a spot in the grassed area.

I place my bouquet of roses on the exact spot. ‘The staff will leave it here for a while, won’t they?’

He looks sympathetic. ‘The wind will blow it away.’ He turns to his fellow worker. ‘Go and get a stake.’

He stakes the bouquet firmly into the lawn. ‘I’ll make sure it stays here for a while.

At my request, he takes photographs of me at Sarah’s lair before returning to his duties.

Bothwell Park Cemetery. Ann Barrie at Sarah Barrie's Lair. June 2019

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A stake in the ground. Photo: Ann Barrie

*

I take stock of the situation. I hadn’t thought about it before coming to the cemetery today, but Sarah and Archie must have been poor. Bill’s cousin said to us the first time we met him, ‘If it’s any comfort, our grandfather would sometimes say to one of Sarah’s sisters,"Take this wee bit o’silver round for poor Sarah to spend."’ Bill’s cousin meant well, but it was of no comfort to Bill – rather, it heightened his feeling of injustice. More recently, after Bill was dead, this cousin told me Sarah’s father paid for Archie to train as a bus conductor. 

I find I have adjusted to the fact that Sarah lies in an unmarked grave. The lair is hers, marked or not. At Bothwell Park Cemetery, lairs are provided forever – so far as you can have a forever – and they are maintained by cemetery staff. There is no need for Sarah to have a tombstone on her quiet piece of lawn. I will tell her story, and my children will keep it alive.

*

I prepare to leave the cemetery, and then stop short. There is something else – Bill’s ashes. I am startled I should have forgotten, but almost as quickly I forgive myself. It is right and proper that Sarah – this forgotten woman – should have a spell in the limelight.  It is also appropriate for me to spend time with her: she would have been my mother-in-law.

Sarah had her moment today, and now it’s Bill’s.  His ashes are in a strong little plastic container, which I have carried in my suitcase for a month, along with a note explaining the contents and a copy of Bill’s death certificate. I had not asked permission, and neither do I ask permission now, as I massage the ashes into the ground, around and under the bouquet of roses. The amount is not huge – it is representative. The rest of the ashes will be scattered at Owhiro Bay, as Bill wished.

I sit on the grass again, this time for a short rest. It has been a big day. The story is not ended – it never is – but I have done enough for now. I notice that the sun is still bright and the trees are sparkling, and I begin my walk back to the station.