Hugh Walpole grave (13th March 1884 to 1st June 1941)

 

I had to brighten these photos as it was dark when I strolled around this cemetery in Keswick in the Lake Distrct. I’d parked in a car park for the night (£1 - couldn’t find one and had to use my bank card.) It was so deathly quiet sleeping in the car park that night I had slight tinnitus for my ears aren’t used to silence.

 

Hugh was a novelist who was successful in 1920 and 30s but is forgotten now. He was born in New Zealand and expected to follow his dad into the clergy. Writing pulled him toward itself though and he was able to make a living from it early on. He’d been born to middle-class parents who decided that he needed an English education. He spent a few miserable years at boarding school and a few happier years at University. Aged 25 his first novel generally produced one novel per year, writing at speed with little editing.

 

Aged 27 he owned a flat in Picadilly in London but moved to the Lake District. In demand lecturing on literature he did four tours of North America harvested a heap of cash. He was a homosexual and found the perfect partner in a married policeman (who had two children.) The policeman left the Constabulary to become Hugh's chauffeur and generally run his affairs.

 

Hugh wrote nearly forty novels, five volumes of short stories, two original plays and three volumes of memoirs. He’s best known for the family saga Herries Chronicles novels which are set in his beloved Lake District. He even went to Hollywood writing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films. Three years before his death he was awarded a knighthood for his services to literature.

 

He didn’t fight in the Second World War due to bad eyesight and diabetes. To help the war effort he was making a speech at Keswick's fund-raising "War Weapons Week" in May 1941. He exerted himself to the point of a heart attack and he died at home aged 57.

 

I had a photograph of the grave and wandered around looking for a towering 20-foot high thing with a Celtic cross at the head. When I found it I saw it was less than six feet high. Oh well. He didn't join his parents who are buried in Edinburgh as his heart lay in the Lake District where he'd lived for seventeen happy years.