Comments on: A Final Walk Home

By: frances donnelly

frances donnelly — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 12:20:18 +0000

A really wonderful piece- I have gone back to it several times, and the illustrations take me straight to memories of that inimitable chalk landscape.

By: Christine Swan

Christine Swan — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 21:00:54 +0000

Thank you so much for the beautiful and thoughtful comments on my piece, which are really appreciated. Annie, I send you my deepest condolences and have you in my thoughts. Thank you also to the GA for featuring my blog and being such an inspiration to those of us starting out. A very warm welcome to everyone who subscribed to my blog as a result of reading this. I am very humbled.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:58:16 +0000

I loved reading this Thank you.

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 22:14:34 +0000

Thank you to Christine for letting us take that journey with her.

Onward and upward.

By: Sarah Johnson

Sarah Johnson — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:53:13 +0000

Thank you for starting my New Year in perspective. I totally identified with the ‘what to do with the ashes’ question. I took my husband to the place he loved to ride his motorcycle to on Sunday afternoons: an icecream parlor in the local mountains. It turns out I wasn’t alone in this decision, and a couple of his friends also reside in their parking lot. Now I have an excuse for an icecream whenever I like — and I know he’s shooting the breeze with friends.

We all deal with death differently. But knowing they are “home” is essential.

By: Connie Unangst

Connie Unangst — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:46:02 +0000

Touching story, well written. I’m all teary, because it reminded me of when I scattered my husbands ashes. Thanks for sharing this story with us.

By: Susan Levinson

Susan Levinson — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:36:07 +0000

Very poignant – and although I live in the U.S., I have friends (for 45 years as of this month) who live in St. Margaret’s at Cliffe and indeed it’s a very peaceful place.

I’d also like to offer my condolences to Annie.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 12:45:47 +0000

Uplifting to read. Sounds like a wonderful place.

By: Robert Kearney

Robert Kearney — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 12:12:53 +0000

What a wonderful article, it brought back so many both happy and sad memories for me. My parents never had a car, but they always managed to take me and my sister and my gran (who lived with us) on holidays by coach or train in the UK in the 1950/1960’s. I knew St Margarets at Cliffe well, as we used to walk there from the nearby Martin Mill station. We stayed there a few times in what were the very popular British Railways holiday coaches. These were like their camping coaches, which were ordinary railway coaches dotted around the country at small country stations and converted into accommodation, but the holiday coaches were slightly better being converted Pullman coaches. At the time they were far better than caravans, and you had to book up a long time ahead for them, as they were so popular. There were two or three of these at Martin Mill station fixed on the small buffered terminal side platform next to the main Dover to Deal line. There used to be disused sidings and a cattle dock there, which me and my sister had great fun playing on and operating all the redundant points levers. Now all that’s sadly gone, including the Pullman holiday coaches (now probably fully restored and used on one of those unique steam trains) and a small housing estate now occupies the sidings. My father used to buy a Kent family rail-rover ticket for the week we were there, and we used to get a train from Martin Mill to a different place every day from the station. We could go anywhere from Herne Bay to Romney and as far inland as Canterbury on it. So me and my sister have very happy memories of that, one of the best holidays we ever had. As to the sad memories, I had the same dilemma of what to do with my parents ashes. Fortunately many years previous to their passing away, both at 99, they had taken out a funeral plan which save so much hassle, however where they had stated they wanted their ashes to go in the local graveyard, they later thought the rows of concrete where ashes went were not for them, and very impersonal. I kept the ashes about five years and finally me and my sister decided to have them interred in my small village churchyard facing open fields and five minutes walk from my house. So at least I could regularly tend their resting place, which is so nice as the few sheep in the field behind always come across to the fence behind their grave as if to say hello to me, and my folks would have liked it there as they loved the countryside, and often used to visit me and run a stall at my village church fete. So thank you for that beautiful article. It brought back so many good memories for me.

By: Marcia Howard

Marcia Howard — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 10:31:28 +0000

A brave story to share. We took my mum’s ashes back to Gloucestershire, so that she too could lie in peace next to her parents, my beloved grandparents.