Keep it safe.

Most people will have read the book; The secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It’s a charming story full of wonder and adventure. When I was a young chap of eleven or twelve my friends and I used to spend our pocket money on a train ride to Marple. I haven’t been there for many years but then it was a small village set in a picturesque part of our northern countryside. We used to enjoy camping and climbing on what then looked to us like mountains. Before returning home we would spend our last few coppers in a quaint little teashop near the bridge. Or perhaps buy a joystick (A cigarette six inches long made from the dung of a camel) from the shop near the pub and sit on the bench overlooking the river and set the seeds for bronchitus and cancer in later life.

One week my friends had other things to do and so I decided to take the train to Marple alone and bring my sketchbook with me. The walk down the hill from the station took me past a long high wall that had a door with a small archway set into it. Most of the green paint had long since peeled off and the dust from countless passing cars had covered the step leading up to it. Above the archway a stone proclaimed that this archway, or wall, or both had been built in 1803. I was impressed and looked at the door more closely, it had an ornate ringed handle set into a lions mouth which was had rusted over the years but still worked because when I turned it, the door opened. I had to push hard there was a bush blocking the way but eventually the gap was wide enough for me to squeeze through.

Once inside I was in another world, despite the overgrown grass and bushes it was obvious that this had once been a large garden of some beauty. There were wild flowers growing on the path that circled a white stoned fountain whose centrepiece was a figure half fish half boy with head back looking up at the sky with pursed lips which must at one time have spouted water into the stone basin below him. At various points around the garden set into the undergrowth stood statues, there was an angel, a crying boy, a large eagle taking flight and all were covered in lichen.

In the far corner of the garden sat an ornate stone bench with the words A place to rest and remember carved into the backrest. I sat on the bench, it was then that I noticed just a few feet away from me almost hidden by the long grass several small headstones, less than a foot tall and only eight inches or so wide. Engraved on them were names and dates, Susie 1823, Jack 1832, Sarah 1840, I discovered many more dotted around the garden most of them overgrown, but all with a name and date and all very small. It was a children’s cemetery, I had learned about these in history class, in the nineteenth century the mortality rate for babies was very high due to poor diet and conditions and children that had died before being baptised had to be buried in unconsicrated ground.

I sat on the stone bench pleased with myself for being knowledgeable about things past and began to draw, I must have stayed there drawing and exploring for many hours before the failing light forced me back to the station and my train home. I went determined that I would tell no one about my secret garden and I never did. My pals and I visited Marple many times and we always passed the door on the walk down the hill from the station. But I kept my secret, and most times I wanted to go through the door again, but instead I camped and climbed and smoked myself silly with joysticks on the bench overlooking the river.

Over the years my secret garden would pop into my head and then pop right out again, I had discovered girls and all the other things a young man finds exciting and had no time for a fading memory. Until one day I was clearing out some unwanted things and in a box I discovered several of my old sketchpads. I flicked through them and came upon the sketches I had made that day. As I looked at them I remembered how magical the garden had been and I resolved to visit the garden again.

A week later I stepped of the train in Marple station excited about seeing this wondrous place again. I made my way down the hill with a spring in my step that quickly disappeared when I reached the place the garden should have been. There was no wall, no door, no garden just a patch of green grass with a few trees and set in the middle where the fountain should have been was a bungalow.

I was sad, but at least I still had the sketches. I retired to the pub near the bench overlooking the river for a pint and something to eat. Whilst drinking my pint I got into conversation with the landlord and asked him what had happened to the children’s cemetery, he hadn’t been here that long so he referred me to old Bob sat in the corner. Old Bob had lived there since the turn of the century and knew everything about the place. As I described the garden to him he started to smile then chuckle then laugh "There never has been a graveyard for little un’s sept for the church" he said. "Place your talkin abart was a pets cemetery, bulldozed a couple year ago for to build arses" I felt a little silly, the names on the headstones though not a Rex or Rover or tiddles amongst them were cats and dogs names.

As I sat on the train back to Manchester I reflected on my folly at not visiting the garden when I had a chance, still I had my sketches and could look at them and remember. Its odd to feel nostalgia for something you have only seen once, and unfair that a beautiful garden could be replaced by something so mundane as a bungalow. Another surprise awaited my return home, a large bonfire in the back garden and on it all the junk that my Mother assumed I was throwing out. Including my sketchbooks. So the moral of this sorry tale has to be; if you find something that you love, keep it safe for as long as you can, or it may turn into bricks and stone.