I grew up beside North Gosforth Chapel, a Grade II Scheduled Ancient Monument. The first written mention of the chapel was in 1296 when it was a place of sanctuary. It was destroyed by fire in the 17th Century, leaving only the foundation walls and floor. The chapel was then abandoned and fell into ruin, although its graveyard continued to be used into the 18th century.
When I was six or seven, a team of archaeologists turned up and started work on the site. I watched as they uncovered the original nave and chancel. The nave was entered by a south door, while the chancel was approached from the north. Evidence of the graveyard included coffins and decorated grave covers, which date back to medieval and 17th century times.
They noted down their findings, including a previously discovered Roman altar bearing the inscription ‘From the seventh cohort’ which indicated the site could even predate the 13th century. Re-used Roman materials were found and it has been suggested the chapel was built entirely from recycled Roman stone. It may well be that these stones came from an abandoned section of Hadrian’s Wall, four miles south.
The archaeologists then tidied up the site, erected information boards, and speculated about what could have happened here in this sacred place. They imagined how things might have been and then wrote about it.
I return one day and stand outside our old house looking across the green towards the chapel ruins. I think I see a small boy sitting on a low excavated wall beside some gravestones. He could be eight, nine, ten or all those ages at the same time. The image blurs and pixelates until it eventually steadies and I recognise him - protruding ears, the vulnerable bare nape of his neck, stooped shoulders. His hair is cut short (too short) by Aunty Dorothy who does their hair once a month on a Sunday afternoon. She’s not a real aunty but a friend of Mam’s, from Durham. She must take two buses and at least a couple of hours to reach them but he doesn’t know that then. After tea of tinned fruit and evaporated milk, she sets up a chair in the kitchen and does them one by one. Dad must pay her at some point but he never sees money change hands. Sometimes she brings Helen, her niece: a clever, adenoidal girl, with an intriguing wart on her nose, who generally ignores him.
He’s poking a blunt stick at the faint lettering on one of the gravestones, trying to read what it might say. His eyes are large, dark and brown, they’re probably his best feature but he doesn’t see me as I sit down beside him. He’s wearing his favourite jumper - grey, woollen with a blue and red fair isle pattern around the shoulders. He’s also got khaki shorts, scabbed knees and built-up shoes to correct his flat feet. He’d prefer sandshoes but they’re only allowed for gym lessons. There’s a gap in his front teeth that he can almost push a penny through, tasting metal on his tongue.
He’s good at spelling although he only got 9 out of 10 last week. He got doctor wrong because he was so certain it must be docter. He needs to know what these faded stone words might say. He’s digging at letters, hoping to discern them and find a recognisable word. He loves the shapes and sounds of words especially when they whisper privately to him.
My seventy year old heart goes out to him. I’m sorry to find him on his own like this and I feel a tug of sadness move between us. I sense his uncertainty, shyness and aloneness (not loneliness, that’s something different). I want to tell him everything will be all right but he can’t hear me and anyway I don’t believe it.
It’s early evening in June, there’s a warmth rustling through the trees. Next month will be his birthday and he hopes for just about everything: roller skates, a leather football, Just William books, a catapult, a penknife, Pez sweets. He wants to be older and capable like Dad as he struggles to dig out these letters hidden in the sandstone. Perhaps he sees a capital E emerge, chiselled in plain sans-serif by a stonemason centuries ago, and could that possibly be an i?
Mam appears at their front door; she’s more beautiful than any film star he’s ever seen. She’s wearing a mustard coloured twinset and black skirt with a turquoise apron over it. She’s holding a cigarette in her left hand and, with her right, pushes back a wisp of hair. She calls across to him: ‘Come on pet, it’s time to come in now.’ He doesn’t want to just yet - he might work out this word if he stays a while longer.
He hopes, for a moment (as I do), that she’ll walk across the green and see what he’s doing. He wants her to sit down beside him, with that unforgettable scent of face powder, Tweed perfume and imperial mints, and put her arm around his shoulder, just like when she taught him to read. But she can’t. Dishes need washing, there’s ironing to do and she’s only wearing her slippers. She’s tired and wants to rest her legs. There’s no time - on this warm sunlit dream of an evening - to sit down and help decide what these words might say.
Perhaps he’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe borrow one of Dad’s chisels or find a sharper stick. But he’ll forget because the lads will come out to play football and he’ll score a goal with his left instep, in off the post. He will forget about gravestones and letters he can’t see.
She calls out again: ‘Come on Allan, time to come in. It’s bedtime.’ We stand up, turn, and make our way across the twilit green towards home.
A tear threatens to wet my cheeks. I saw it coming but the last paragraph still got me because of your prose. Thank you
Beautiful memories.