Peromyscus: Californians in Highgate Cemetery

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

We visit Highgate Cemetery, continued.

Graves and grave markers jumbled in greenery

Highgate Cemetery

When I first moved to London, in 1976, I and some other students took a tube to South Woodford, where we would be living in the Halls of Residence. Outside the city, a lot of the tube lines are above ground, and on this one we passed a gigantic graveyard. I'd never seen anything like it.

"There are a lot of people in London," Ralph mused, solemnly.

"And they're all dead," Trevor quipped, though it wasn't very funny.

There are many more graveyards in London, but none as famous as Highgate Cemetery.

Near the entrance, and a must-visit, was the grave of Douglas Adams, writer of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, a Doctor Who writer, and the originator of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Adams died young, at 49, and as with all creatives who leave us early, one can’t help wondering what he would have done next. You can see his marker a long way off, as a tradition has sprung up in the quarter century since his death. Visitors leave pens, ballpoint and fountain pens in a receptacle placed there for them. Anyone who has, or has found, a piece of paper with the number "42" on it also leaves them at the grave.

I left a ballpoint pen in his memory.

Gravestone with inscription reading Douglas Adams. A bucket with many, many ballpoint pens in it at the front.

Douglas Adams' grave

Also resting there is Malcolm McLaren, the producer, Sex store owner and manager/entrepreneur of the Sex Pistols. Another man who didn’t quite make old age. As I’ve gotten older myself, some of the things I thought of as Malcolm “cashing in” – like the South African beats, or the Sex Pistols themselves – now seem more like genius moves on his part. (I could have done without “Cosh the Driver” though.) Visitors seem to leave him pound coins. Not sure why, and I didn’t have one, but in a move that was well and truly NOT PUNK I didn’t steal any of the ones that were already there.

A black gravestone with a shield above, a headstone with a death mask in an alcove and grass in front of it. Inscription in white reads Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren better a spectacular failure than a benign success.

Malcolm McLaren's grave. Better a spectacular failure,
than a benign success.

The big draw to Highgate Cemetery is Karl Marx. Dr. Marx has two grave markers. One where he was initially interred, and one where he was reburied. I didn’t have a tour guide to ask, but I assume he was moved because so many people wanted to spend eternity next to him. Paul Foot and Eric Hobsbawm were nearby, along with a few international Marxists and probably others whose names weren’t familiar to me. His older grave was decorated with a little hammer and sickle made of loose pebbles. It probably won’t last long, no doubt a gift from a visitor.

Karl Marx' grave. Looks a
bit like Zardoz, but isn't.

Karl Marx' original, now empty, grave. Also shown,
several feet and a pebble hammer and sickle.

Eric Hobsbawm's grave, near Uncle Karl

Paul Foot's grave, near Uncle Karl

We also visited William Kingdon Clifford, the mathematician, Michael Faraday, the Father of Electricity, Alan Sillitoe the playwright and Patrick Caulfield’s inventive “DEAD” tombstone. There’s also a circular section called the Egyptian Mausoleum which is a true city of the dead. Walking around it is like visiting Petra or Babylon, except it’s wet and cold and the signage is in English.

Allan Sillitoe

A black gravestone and marker. The marker is in the shape of a stair descending to the right, and in each step stylized letters have been carved out spelling DEAD

Patrick Caulfield

William Kingdon Clifford

Michael Faraday

It is a very sobering place. I got the very definite message that people are dead for a lot longer than they are alive, and that time doesn’t stop for them even then. It marches on, with trees ripping apart the coffins and tumbling the gravestones, and the thick layers of moss constantly overturned by crows hunting for insects underneath. There weren’t even any conkers around for me to take as a souvenir, as I had at Pere-Lachaise and Golders Green.