Faces for Radio: The Day We Made a Cemetery Club Documentary.
by Christina
A couple of weeks ago, on a rainy day in South London (is there any other type of day at the moment? No. It just rains.) Sheldon and I packed ourselves and our wet weather gear into my tiny Nissan Micra and beetled over to West Norwood Cemetery to meet Laura and Bobby, two media students we know who wanted to make a radio documentary about our bizarre hobby. As I understand it, it was a toss up between a roller derby team, and us. We won, of course. The Victorians didn’t have roller derby. And so this is how we came to be standing in a loose circle on the front steps of the Greek Orthodox chapel in West Norwood Cemetery in January, trying to shelter ourselves and Laura’s microphone from the howling wind, attempting to explain to our unseen future audience of thousands what Cemetery Club is and how it came about, and what we’re still doing here a year later (if you listen to Sheldon then our 1 Year anniversary of the founding of CC has recently passed – he charts our origins to the day in January 2013 that we visited Kensal Green).
The Greek Orthodox part of Norwood Cemetery can be found in the north east corner and contains 19 mausoleums and monuments among other things
You can listen to the finished documentary here. And you should, you absolutely should. Get on board with our London based oddity and it’s growing cult following. You can say you were there at the beginning before we made it onto the telly. And check out Laura’s skillz too – she’ll go far, that one.
Bobby & Laura at Beamish & McGlue
It was a nice day, despite Bobby and Laura getting severely delayed by the ever-worsening state of National Rail in winter which must have been pretty annoying for them, but for me it meant I had time to eat a bacon sandwich before the interview. Also despite the rain and wind, and Sheldon wearing inappropriate footwear (I know, right? Usually it’s me that turns up wearing ridiculous shoes. His feet got soaked to the skin). Here are some things that happened:-
– We got to witness a lavish looking West Indian funeral procession, complete with half a dozen white horses. – We found the elusive Greek Orthodox section of the cemetery, which we had failed to locate during our first visit in May 2013. – I wore an impressive 1920’s style hat -There was a lovely rainbow, which we all took photos of.
– Bobby told Sheldon he looked like the 2nd Doctor and henceforth this became his new nickname. -Sheldon ran across a field, dodging in between gravestones for seemingly no reason at all, and we all watched him in awe, because truly he could have been about to jump into a Tardis. – We spotted some graves that had been ruined by flooding, and a lot of trees that had recently blown down. We all thought this was very sad. – After it was all over, we all went to my beloved Beamish & McGlue for tea and cake, and there was much delight, and the Instagramming of desserts.
flood damage
Social Networking over tea and cake
Once again for your viewing (okay, listening) pleasure:-
Our radio interview with Laura Pursey
If you’d like to interview us, make a film about us, feature us on your blog or give us cake for no reason, please get in touch!
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