|
In loving memory of Walter.....
The George and
Dragon at Dragons Green is a fine country pub – just
the place for a pint or two. Visitors cannot fail to
notice the commemorative tombstone that stands in its
front garden, and thereby hangs a sad tale, which goes
as follows:
In the second half
of the 19th century the names of the
landlord and his wife were Alfred and Charlotte Budd,
and they were also owners of the free house. Their son
Walter was born on 12 February 1867, and the poor lad
stood out because he was an albino. In today's more
sensitive (and sensible) times this would not
necessarily have been a problem, but attitudes were
harsher in those days, and while growing up Walter
must have suffered much from village comment, simply
because he was different. In addition he was subject
to occasional epileptic fits. Life was not easy.
When he was 26, in
1893, he had to carry an extra burden – one that
proved too many - in that he was suspected quite
wrongly of petty theft, and things became so
intolerable that the poor young man committed suicide
by drowning in Spring Pond, Knepp. As the parish
magazine for March 1893 put it: 'Foolish words, harsh
ridicule and bitter reproaches poured forth against
one whose state of health and mind could not bear it,
leading him to the awful crime of self-destruction'.
One can only imagine
the anger and grief of his parents, and they placed a
marble cross over their son's remains in Shipley
churchyard which held the following message: 'May God
forgive those who forgot their duty to Him who was
just and afflicted'. And so they made their feelings
plain to those locally who they held to have
persecuted their son, and what happened next was that
the vicar, Rev H Gorman, ordered the removal of the
commemorative cross, taking the message it held to be
a personal attack on him. His justification for this
action was firstly that the symbol of sacrifice (the
cross) could not fittingly be placed upon the remains
of a sinner who had committed suicide, and secondly
that the wording used was offensive. And so Walter now
lay in an unmarked grave.
The Budds,
defiantly, then re-erected the cross in front of their
public house. To add insult to injury some time later
the next vicar, Rev Edward Arkle (appointed in 1894),
for reasons best known to himself also removed from
the churchyard two 'globe' wreaths which sympathisers
had installed on the unmarked grave after the removal
of the original cross. So these now joined the cross
in the garden, and a message on a board there then
read: 'This cross was erected on the grave in Shipley
churchyard and removed by order of H Gorman, vicar.
Two globe wreaths were placed on the grave by friends
and after being there for two years were removed by E
Arkle, the following vicar'.
This whole sorry
story gained national attention and much press
coverage at the time. And today, over 100 years later,
do spare a thought for young Walter when you next pass
by. |
