Inscriptions can vary from those of one or two words to those more like mini-novels. The real old country graveyards are part of our life and landscape. Everyone has its fascination and were what the Saxons defined as 'God's Acre'. In the middle ages they were the village meeting places - the place for fun and entertainment. There are thousands of cemeteries in this country, most of them with hundreds of gravestones still to be seen. Many churchyards contain hundreds of bodies deep, deep down in the ground, and indeed, it has been calculated that a church with an average of only six burials a year and its graveyard in use for 800 years would have 4.800 bodies stacked around it!

This series concentrates on the humour of the inscriptions, once so much a feature of centuries ago but largely disappearing in modern times. Norfolk is a county rich in strange epitaphs.

One reads:-
'Under this tree lies Roger Norton
Whose sudden death was oddly brought on
Trying one day his corn to mow off
The razor slipped and cut his toe off
The toe, or rather what it grew to
An inflamation quickly flew to
The parts then took to mortify
And poor old Roger took to die'

I heard this epitaph mentioned some years ago on the Barrymore TV Show.
It is an inscription for a glassblower:
'A friend of many - a friend so true
A pity he sucked - when he shudda blew'

Still on accidents there is an epitaph which will remind readers of the old nursery rhyme we used to say. 'Solomon Grundy, born on Monday. Christened on Tuesday etc. It is to an Ann Cook.
'On a Thursday she was born
On a Thursday made a bride
On a Thursday broke her leg
And on a Thursday died'

There is a very interesting military epitaph in memory of a mule that served on India's North West Frontier.

'This stone is erected in respectful memory of Bessie Jane - one of the liveliest mules ever to make a British soldier to swearing. In her lifetime she kicked two Colonels, two Majors, two Captains, three Lieutenants, five Sergeants, eleven Corporals, eighteen Privates - and alas, one live grenade'

The hazards of military life were by no means confined to the battle field as a stone set up at Woolwich shows.
'Sacred to the memory of Major James Brush who was killed by the accidental discharge of a pistol by his orderly on the 14th April, 1831.
Well done, good and faithful servant'

There is a sobering inscription in 'Last of the Summer Wine' country, and it is seen at Netherthong, near Holmfirth. A little girl is remembered on a plaque in the Wesleyan Chapel. I will let you reflect on the formidable nature of this school teacher.
'To the memory of Anne Hobson - aged 12 years
Who died through the fear of a whipping by the
school mistress in 1856'
Here is an old send off from Durness in Scotland's Sutherland. Perhaps like the one we saw in an earlier article, it may have happened on Bonfire Night.
'Here doth lye the body of John Flye who did die
By a stroke from a sky rocket
Which hit him in the eye socket'

Hilaire Belloc, like John Wesley, and many others, suggested his own epitaph. He wrote.
'When I am dead I hope it may be said
His sins were scarlet but his books were red'

No doubt some of you know the joke about the newspaper advertisement which read.
'Secondhand Tombstone for sale. Bargain for a family named Perkins'

It is a well known fact that John Wesley's father had no love for lawyers so it is unlikely that he would have thought much to this epitaph.
'Here lie John and Anthony Benn
Lawyers both and honest men
God works wonders now and then'
You will have noticed the title for this week's article and this inscription explains it.

'Here lies John Adams who received a thump
Right on the forehead from the Parish Pump
Which gave him the quietus in the end
For many doctors did his case attend'

Many of the epitaphs which record death by lightning are often extremely long and detailed. I will end this week with one from from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk which is one which is not too long. It commemorates the death of a young girl.

'Here lies interred the body of Mary Haselton, a young maiden of this town, born of Roman Catholic parents, and virtuously brought up, who, being in the act of prayer repeating her vespers, was instantaneously killed by a flash of lightning, August 16th, 1785. Aged 9 years'

Next week in Part 7 - Crowland Abbey Epitaph