Taphophile Tragics # 13

The Australian War Memorial (AWM) is the most visited public building in Australia. It is located in our national capital, Canberra. Within the AWM, is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, lying in the Hall of Memory. The first image is of the decorative interior dome of the Hall of Memory. The second image shows the Commemmorative Courtyard with the Pool of Reflection, and the Eternal Flame. The final image shows the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier itself.


The AWM says

"Plans for a tomb for an Australian unknown soldier were first put forward in the 1920s but it was not until 1993 that someone was at last brought home. With great reverence, the remains of an unknown Australian were removed from a cemetery in France in 1993 and transported to Australia. After lying in state in King’s Hall in Old Parliament House, he was interred in the Hall of Memory at the Memorial on 11 November 1993. The Unknown Australian Soldier was buried in a Tasmanian blackwood coffin, with a slouch hat and a sprig of wattle, and soil from the Pozières battlefield was scattered on his tomb. He represents all Australians who have been killed in war."

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Welcome to the 13th week of Taphophile Tragics.

Your contribution is most welcome. Please ensure that you include some details of the cemetery in which you took your photographs, and link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the other contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours. Due to time zone variations and overcrowded schedules, some contributions are made later than Tuesday/Wednesday.

Taphophile Tragics # 12

Today, I take you way down to the southermost state of Australia, the island state of Tasmania. Tasmania housed one of the most brutal penal colonies on this earth, at Port Arthur, which is in the south-east of the state. On a small promontory just down from the Commandant's Cottage, is this singular grave. It is a memorial to the first Commandant of the penal colony, Charles O'Hara Booth (1800 - 1851) who was commandant from 1833 - 1840. He died of a heart attack at Newtown near Hobart. My understanding is that his body is not resting here, but I am not able to confirm that. Then, come with me to Sydney Eye, and take the short, blustery ferry trip out to the 'Isle of the Dead', where convict and freeman spend Eternity cheek by jowl.

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Welcome to the 12th week of Taphophile Tragics.

Your contribution is most welcome. Please ensure that you include some details of the cemetery in which you took your photographs, and link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the other contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours. Due to time zone variations and overcrowded schedules, some contributions are made later than Tuesday/Wednesday.

Taphophile Tragics # 11

Funerary masons would have to be the most self-effacing tradies around.

This is the quality of lead I am working with: Hanson & Co. But I have others: Spurson, A E Anderson, H Johnson. All these are from my field trip through Waverley Cemetery last month. There were other names - like Charles Kinsela, and Walter Carter - but I know these to be undertakers not creators of funerary art.

There are so many gorgeous statues in Waverley Cemetery. There must be a clue to unlocking their secrets.

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Welcome to the 11th week of Taphophile Tragics.

Your contribution is most welcome. Please ensure that you include some details of the cemetery in which you took your photographs. Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the other contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours. Due to time zone variations and overcrowded schedules, some contributions are made later than Tuesday/Wednesday.

Taphophile Tragics # 10

She looks ... well ... almost angelic, as she coquettishly loiters within Waverley Cemetery. However, I have a suspicion that even angels, when they grow up, get into strife. On gossamer wings, glide on over to Sydney Eye to assess my evidence.

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Welcome to the tenth week of Taphophile Tragics.

Your contribution is most welcome. Please ensure that you include some details of the cemetery in which you took your photographs. As you are surely all appreciating, a few of our number have meandered through burial grounds in wierd and wonderful places all around the globe.

Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the other contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours. Due to time zone variations and overcrowded schedules, some contributions are made later than Tuesday/Wednesday.

Taphophile Tragics # 9

W. Bayfield, Esq., wore his heart on his sleeve, thought I, before mentally squishing him beneath my grinding heel. That one's for you, Maud.

William John Bayfield was a mechanic who lived in Waverley, with his wife Louisa Maud, who performed 'home duties'. They married in 1926 when Maud was 44 already.

However, upon reflection, it occurred to me that there may be another meaning to amiable than that which is currently in use. I note it is related to the Latin 'amare' meaning 'to love' (amo, amare, amavi, amatum). Any ideas?

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Welcome to the ninth week of Taphophile Tragics.We welcomed a number of new contributors last week, and our numbers, to use twitterese, are trending. I spent an hour and a half walking Waverley Cemetery very early on Sunday morning. It would take more than a year of Sundays to do the place justice.

Your contribution is most welcome. Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the other contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.

Taphophile Tragics # 8

This grave marker is in Port Macquarie General Cemetery, which is on the side of a gently sloping hill. It is not the best maintained country cemetery I have wandered. The grass was badly in need of a mow, but they have suffered from a surfeit of rain for the last few weeks. Quite a few graves and their markers were showing wear and tare, not so much from vandalism, but the effects of wind and rain. Name plates tumbled down, fences off hinges, markers subsiding. But lots of stories within. I cover one such story in my own post this week.

What I did find remarkable in the Port cemetery, is the amount of inlaid tiling. There must have been a monumental mason who also held a tiling shop. It seemed to be one way of decorating the cemetery. Someone had also gone around with lots of plastic/silk flowers which were everywhere, even on markers erected during the late 19th early 20th centuries.

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Welcome to the eighth week of Taphophile Tragics. After a most traumatic week organising a nursing home for my brother who has suffered a stroke, I eventually managed to visit each post. I am loving this immense learning curve that I am on. Hope you are each on one, too.I can go into cemeteries now and see things that I would have overlooked just 8 weeks ago. I can draw links to other cemeteries, especially regarding style.

Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.

Taphophile Tragics # 7

Graveyard, St Jude's, Randwick

Last week, CaT from Boston asked in her comment why this sort of exercise is called a 'meme'. With a shrug of my shoulders, I set to work finding an answer. In his 1989 book, 'The Selfish Gene', Richard Dawkins wrote (on page 192) 'We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.' The French word même means 'same'. Dawkins was waffling on about biological replication, so it is important not to take OUR use of the expression too preciously. Although, it is possible to see some slight correlation of behaviour patterns: Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread and mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their host. Memes are equivalent to the musical variation upon a theme.

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Welcome to the seventh week of Taphophile Tragics. I knew I should not have mentioned numbers last week! Shall not do so again, says she gesturing skywards. However, your contributions are still magnificently detailed and diverse. They make engrossing reading. I continue to monitor the links daily, all week, and am managing to eventually visit everyone who posts. I appreciate each contribution, the effort put into researching, and especially the increasing equilibrium of image and text.

Please link directly to your post, rather than simply to your blog in general. Mr Linky opens at 10pm Monday, Sydney time (GMT+11). When you can, please visit the contributing bloggers to show your appreciation of their endeavours.