Harriet & Isobel

This is Harriet. She was 61 when she died 111 years ago. She stands in the churchyard at Remenham. If you stand beside her and follow her gaze you can see through an arch created by the branch of a small tree straight through to Isobel (extra). Isobel was two years and three months old when she died 125 years ago. Two different families, but Harriet must have been aware of the death of baby Isobel, Harriet was 47 when Isobel died and it's a tiny community.

Yes, it's true, these two are not alone in their vaults-beneath-angels, they share their space with other family members, but even so, a stone angel the size of an adult human must have cost a significant sum even then, otherwise we would see a great many more of them. So at some point, a person (or persons) in each of these two families made the decision to pay a great whack of money to preserve the memory of their departed family members. It can't just have been showmanship, there must have been a very great deal of love.

And all of these bright young things whizzing about the country lanes in cars below the height of a standard supermarket trolley, will there be anything to record their existence 125 years after they have wrapped themselves around an immovable object? No, because there is no love. Yes they might love themselves, but that is a very different thing, I think.