We tiptoe around the subject, but we'll all have to confront it one day. Credit: ANDREW MILLIGAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Every summer, bookshops lay out stacks of blockbusters designed to be devoured in an afternoon and forgotten in a week. But at UnHerd we prefer books that leave a lasting impression. In this series of Summer Reads, our contributors recommend overlooked books that will engage and enrich you, not just distract you.
I’ve never been good with death. Which is not to say that I am afraid of dying. In fact, I almost did when I was very young; I was run over by a truck when I was only five. Hours of surgery followed, then weeks of treatment, months of rehabilitation, and a lifetime with scars and aches and body parts that don’t match.
No. It’s not the idea of my own death I don’t like – if He came to sit beside me for a while, I like to think that I wouldn’t plead or bargain or upend my chair to get away. We would talk civilly. There would be no chummy chess match, but a bow of the head and an acceptance that every day since that first dodge all those years ago was an indulgence.
It’s other people’s deaths I’ve always struggled with.
The first one that really hit me wasn’t that of an elderly relative or a much-loved pet. There was no “he had a good innings” or “it was a blessing, really”, to comfort myself with. He was a classmate at school. We were 15 and one day he just fell down dead from a heart condition that no one knew he had.
I went to the funeral. I had promised myself I wouldn’t – I had told myself I wouldn’t be mawkish or voyeuristic. But, at the last minute, I changed into my school uniform – to deflect any challenge that might come my way as to why I was there – and walked the two miles from my village to the church where the ceremony was held. It was my first funeral. I didn’t cry.
Or, at least, not in the church. Or by the graveside as ropes jerked the coffin into the gaping maw of a hole. It didn’t hit me till months later. The grief came mixed up in the challenge most teenagers face at some point, when the old certainties of faith fall away. When the picture-book bible stories of heaven and hell don’t work any more. It’s when you realise a belief isn’t true just because you want it to be.
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SubscribeWhy is the proposed extension a “desecration ” . The whole ambiance of Stonehenge has been vastly improved in recent years. The side road from the A303 which went past the stones, cutting the ancient landscape in two, has been grassed over and entrance is in a much less obtrusive place. The only problem is the narrow A303 which causes endless traffic jams between the roundabouts. An extra lane, particularly one going west would be much appreciated.