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IN MEMORY OF THE CLERK’S SON
Bless my iiiiii
Here he lies
In a sad Pickle
Kill’d by Icicle
IN THE YEAR 1776

John Nott dies in horrific circumstances and all the locals can think to do is to make up a little ditty, not even thinking to tell us his name. He was standing in the shadow of the church tower, waiting for the bell ringers to arrive, one bitter December evening. Hearing a cracking above his head, he looked up, being suddenly struck in the eye by a shard of ice, with the sort of deadly precision only dreamed of by horror movie directors. John died instantly. Unfortunate b.

IN
MEMORY
OF THE
OLD FISH
UNDER THE SOIL
THE OLD FISH DO LIE
20 YEARS HE LIVED
AND THEN DID DIE
HE WAS SO TAME
YOU UNDERSTAND
HE WOULD COME AND
EAT OUT OF OUR HAND
DIED April the 20th 1855
Aged 20 YEARS

On the day that police foiled a suicide bomb plot, my movements around the Old Fish were being monitored by a keen-eyed neighbour. She was suspicious of my motives as I edged my way surreptitiously to the porch where the framed wooden marker hangs. I showed her a picture on the cover of a book from 1987. Fish Cottage has had a lot of money spent on it since then. The honey coloured Cotswold villages look expensive and….exclusive, in all the wrong ways, you understand. The brook still bubbles through the front garden, forming pools in places, were the old trout would wait for its next morsel. Such is fame, you see, he would only appear, for a fee.