The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #171977   Message #4161666
Posted By: Steve Shaw
07-Jan-23 - 06:28 PM
Thread Name: BS: Joke thread for 2023
Subject: RE: BS: Joke thread for 2023
One of the grimmest gravestone inscriptions I know of is the one on the grave of Jim (whose surname I forget) who was the landlord of the Bush Inn in Morwenstow, Cornwall. The grave is in the Morwenstow churchyard. It reads:

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead


(from a poem by WH Auden)

Jim died some time in the 1990s. We knew him and his partner Beryl quite well. A more severe pair of sourpusses you've never met. One summer's evening Mrs Steve and I drove to the pub, looking forward to a pleasant bar meal, which the pub was noted for. When we arrived, we found all the doors locked and Jim strolling around outside. To my polite enquiry as to the prospect of our obtaining a drink and a meal, he told me that he wasn't opening. He didn't feel like it. He couldn't be bothered. Tails between legs, we made our way home, stopping at the chippy in Kilkhampton.

Seems that the tone of his epitaph was in keeping with his character...