We were delighted to read this description of the cemetery in a book by a local GP, Dr. Gavin Francis, winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award in 2015:
"In the centre of the district, not far from the clinic, is a graveyard that is held apart from the city by a high wall. A gravel path winds between mature stands of birch, oak, sycamore and pine; their roots cradle the coffins as they crumble back to earth… The surnames engraved on those stones are familiar: the same ones appear on my computer screen each day. Some of the memorials have an ostentatious gravitas, while others are modest and simple – just a name and two dates. There’s something democratic about the way the rich and poor lie side by side. A row along one wall is reserved for the local Jewish population: it’s cordoned by steel railings, but the tree roots break through regardless."
Gavin Francis, Adventures in Human Being; published by Profile Books, 2015.
Published with the kind permission of the author and publisher.