We recently toured in Gloucestershire's Forest of Dean - a very beautiful part of Britain and not one that you would really associate with coal mining. In fact, this area once had many coal mines of the Drift variety, and an epitaph at Little Dean tells us about a pit disaster of 1819. It reads:

'These four youths were suddenly called into eternity on Tuesday the 6th April 1819 by an awful dispensation of the Almighty. The link of a chain employed to lower them into Bilston Pit breaking they were precipitated to the bottom of the Pit. Their bones literally dashed to pieces their bodies thus presenting a frightful and appalling spectacal to all who beheld them. They were interred in one grave on the Friday following being Good Friday April 9 1819.'

The inscription goes on to say that a sermon was given on the following Sunday when it was thought fit to add the text used (St Luke 13 vs 1 to 3) on to the tomb as a warning to all survivors. The epitaph ends with these words:

'Swift flew the appointed messenger of death and in a moment stopt their mortal breath. Art thou preserved as suddenly to die? Tis mercy's call O list unto the cry'

Thomas Morgan aged 26
William Tingle aged 19
Robert Tingle aged 16
James Meredith aged 12

A few years ago when I was giving a talk in Scunthorpe a Mrs J Parsonage passed on this epitaph found in Mylor churchyard and near where the novelist, Howard Spring, is buried. It reads:

'In memory of Mr Joseph Crapper
Shipwright, who died 26th of Nov 1770
Aged 43 years.
Alas frend Joseph
His end was almost sudden
As thow the mandate came
Express from heaven
His foot it slip and he did fall
Help, help he cries and that was all'

The gravestones of farmers are frequently adorned with carvings of ploughs, harrows, sickles, hayforks, reaping hooks, rakes and other agricultural tools, often all grouped around a central sheaf. Examples of such tombs can especially be seen in Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Sussex and Berkshire.

But now for send offs for publicans of which there are many. Here's one from Upton-upon-Severn but the same inscription is also found at Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, where it is not in the churchyard but on the wall of the local monumental mason - along with others from the 18th century onwards.

'Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion
Doth lie the landlord of the Red Lion
His son keeps on the business still
Resigned upon the heavenly will'

Now look for the beery words in this inscription from South Africa but also from Liverpool.

'Here lies poor Burton
He was both ale and stout
Death laid him on his bitter bier
Now in another world he hops about'

A less numerous play on words is seen in this inscription for a man called Pepper.

'Though hot my name - yet mild my nature
I bore good will to every creature
I brewed fine ale and sold it too
And unto each I gave his due'

William Morris, Landlord of the Three Crowns at Arnold in Nottinghamshire, died in 1800 aged 70.

'Three crowns on earth adorned my name
One crown immortal now I claim'
Some gravestones in Ireland can perhaps confuse us a bit. One to a grocer goes:
'Here lie the remains of John Hall, grocer
The world is not worth a fig
And I have good raisins for saying so'

Now work this one out seen in Belturnet churchyard, Northern Ireland.

'Here lies James Higley
Whose father and mother were drowned
In the passage to America
Had they both lived
They would have been buried here'

A really old epitaph was sent to me by Mrs Mary Bottesford. It dates from 1440 and both of us seemed to think it was rather prophetic.

'When pictures look alive with moment free (television
When ships like fishes swim beneath the sea (submarines)
When men outstripping birds shall scan the sky (aircraft)
Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall lie (Wars)

Next week in Part 11 - Abundant Confusion