I happened across this plaque - set into a small wooden bridge over a stream - today, and and its message was so simple and cheerful it really made me smile so I took a picture on my phone - then I noticed that the theme this week is Remembrance and I thought this would be perfect.
This plaque is in a little wood in Comberton called Watts Wood. I've walked the dogs along the footpath nearby for years as its handy on the way to or from school, but hadn't even noticed the wood itself until a few weeks ago - the path that leads into it is very modest and looks more like a back way into someone's allotment. It's only tiny, but once you enter, there is a very interesting information board (the field nearby is called Herringsfield, for example, because the income from the land was once used to buy a barrel of herrings to be distributed to the poor of the parish at Lent. As for Bill Watts, he was a resident of the village, who was apparently an active member of the parish council for 40 years until he died in 2002. He'd been the driving force behind buying this little patch of woodland for the village and so it was named in his memory. I'm guessing that 'Cheerio Everybody' was his familiar refrain as he left all those parish council meetings and seems a great way to be remembered.
I spent a big chunk of the day taking Will to hospital to have his elbow s-rayed. It turned out there was no fracture. He was most disappointed. He was hoping for a plaster cast. And 'broke my arm in a ski-ing accident' sounds so much cooler when you're 12, than 'a nasty attack of golfer's elbow'.
I think it is lovely when someone can be remembered in death as they were in life , if you get my drift!! I can't remember who it was now , but some "famous" person asked to have "He konked out" as his epitaph!!
