Tales from a quiet churchyard
finding inspiration amongst the tombstones - the first of a series
Have you ever wandered though a churchyard and stopped to ponder the lives of those buried there? Simon St John Beer took such a stroll in 1998, and in the result, eerily ambled into our lives. The churchyard was in the quiet town of Amersham in the Chiltern hills of Buckinghamshire, and the grave that sparked his interest that day was that of Peter Cape Beauchamp St John, a young spitfire pilot who lost his life during the Battle of Britain.
Peter was the cousin of an old family friend, (now buried in that same quiet churchyard,) and Simon Beer quickly became mesmerized by him, notwithstanding that they had never met, and had absolutely no family connection- indeed, no connection of any kind.
Based solely upon a casual stroll through a country churchard, and chancing upon Peter’s grave, Beer set about to learn everything he could about the dead young pilot, and the project became an obsession. He combed through the military archives, pored over Peter’s service records, and traced his early education. As his fascination grew, an idea began to form. He would honour Peter St John’s life by writing his life story.
https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/A-Salute-to-One-of-The-Few-Hardback/p/18
And then he began contacting family and friends. Imagine, if you can, the jolt of opening the door one morning to find a complete stranger on your door-step making inquiries of a long-dead relative! Our friend Daphne received such a visit, and being a well-mannered English woman of sweet disposition, and trusting nature, she invited him in for tea and bisquits, and told him what she could remember of Peter’s short life.
Others who had known Peter also received a knock on the door, including my wife’s Godmother, who obliged with her own scant recollections of Peter’s youth, and so Simon Beer’s project slowly forged ahead, to the continued bemusement of Peter’s family- who was this guy? and what was his fascination with Peter ?
The end result was a creditable attempt to bring to life Peter’s brief story (he was only 24 when he was shot down and killed,) and an able imagining of what life must have been like for a Battle of Britian pilot. It is hard to imagine how a life so short could produce the material for a full length book; biographies are usually only warranted after a long and auspicious life, but Simon Beer managed it, albeit with a lot of non-biographical detail about the Battle of Britan, Spitfires, and World War II aviation in general. Not a book I would have picked up otherwise, but one I couldnt ignore once I had become acquainted with the back-story
It is eerie to learn how the breadcrumbs a life leaves behind: birth registers, school reports, military records, yearbooks, and so forth, allow a researcher a generation later to paint a detailed portrait of a gallant young man, and sad to reflect upon the intimate details that no biographer can ever know.
Was Peter’s death mourned by more than his small family? Did he leave behind a lover? was her life forever altered by his sudden death? Did she too visit that quiet country churchyard from time to time in the intervening decades? Indeed, did anyone visit, before Simon Beer, and, more latterly, your own curious correspondent?
Imagine what other stories lurk in quiet churchyards? Last month I made a start, ambling through a pioneer cemetary in an old gold rush town looking for inspiration!
