The Death Sheds of Colney Rise: A D H Laven article

Part Two

Let’s cross the street and go back to No. 15: former residence of Mr and Mrs Reginald Cozens. A plain house from the outside - and even plainer inside.  As for the garden – it too is plain. But it wasn’t always this way. Its present plainness must be blamed on the last two or three owners of this curious dwelling; owners who have made it their business to sterilise any sense of mystery the property once had; to sell off all but one of the intriguing artefacts with which the garden was once decorated. What remains? Nothing of any great interest. Only the shape of the lawn - in a perverted version of its former glory - and a solitary border stone, faintly carved with the famous ‘Cozenoglyphics’. That this has not been wrenched from its habitat is not testament to the current owners’ interest in Cozens. If it testament to anything, it is to their ignorance. In fact, they had not noticed the carvings until I pointed them out, upon which they feigned disinterest - though I am now told that they are considering selling this final stone to Mr Lovitz, whose part in this story I will shortly reveal. I take that back. I will in fact reveal, expand and explain the role of Mr Lovitz right now.

    Mr Reginald Cozens died in 1971. He choked on a cherry stone, tripped up and then died of natural causes. Mrs Cozens, of course, had been dead for a while now. Had she not been in this state, this state we call death, ‘cozenoglyphics’ would never have come into being and Mr Jeremy Lovitz Jnr, of Michigan, would not have spent forty-eight pounds on an obelisk/tomb/random stone object in 1979, later installed in the garden of one of his five houses outside Detroit. As we have discussed, art springs from many assorted sources. I might add at this point that art, once it has come into being, also springs to many assorted sources. Works of art may take the most unexpected journeys; they may be passed through the most unlikely pairs of hands, ending up in the strangest of places; ripped from their original context, for better or for worse. From a clammy Ferrendale garden to a well-clipped lawn near the banks of Lake Erie. Who could have predicted that? Reginald Cozens, for one, would probably be a little shocked to hear that the monument he created for his dead wife had made it across the Atlantic and into the estate of the executive director of a tinned fruit company. For my part, though uneasy over the exchange (the work undoubtedly belongs in Colney Rise) I am at least satisfied that Jeremy Lovitz Jnr is the kind of conscientious and educated owner that the Cozens monument has always deserved. Unlike some, he recognises its true worth.

    And what is that worth? Oh, to quantify, to quantify: do not lead me there. Like the best aesthetic sort, I will evermore stay on the wing. That is to say, I will not land on that flypaper. Not now, not ever. Suffice it to say that Cozens’ monument – and the various superfluities that came with it, the ‘last carved stone’ included - was (and is) a more than valuable addition to the tombs of Colney Rise, taking the eccentric examples of Voiles and O’Connell in a slightly different direction. Unable to match either of these men in wealth or in the stringent desire to make an arrogant cultural statement, old Reginald opted instead for something smaller, quieter and altogether more subtle: a simple stone monument, festooned in simple images and, it seems, letters of some sort or another, impressed upon the eternal stone.

    What is the deal? Bless me if I can answer that question, whatever meaning might be held within it. The way I see it, however, is that the Cozens monument is a masterpiece of personal symbolism; a delicate, profound and skilfully produced piece of art. Each cut that Reginald Cozens inflicted upon that stone was not only an inverted caress – the painful externalisation of a love he was unable to share with his departed wife – but also a small, albeit well-aimed jab at the memorials that stood proudly, ostentatiously, across the street. If the Cozens monument could speak, it would say this: ‘I may not be as big as you are, but what I say, I say well’. It would hardly befit such a subtle stone to go on, but if it did, it might add these words also: ‘Admittedly, I have chosen to transmit my message somewhat obliquely. But what matter? My message is not for the world. I am not here to show off. I say what I need to say, to an audience who cares’.

    Hearken to the loquacious and well-spoken stone. The riches are almost always to be found in the details; in the very dust. Or will be, I should say, once we’ve worked out what all the details mean. I would be lying, after all, if I said that Cozen’s shrewd little monument had yielded all its secrets to us. It hasn’t. However, if the ‘cozenoglyphics’ have yet to be successfully interpreted, the general message has more clarity than the proverbial crystal. Reginald Cozens could never afford to bury his wife in style; he could not erect a ten foot tomb in her honour, with a classical façade, or with rococo trimmings. But he knew her - and he knew how to pass on that knowledge in the medium of stone carving, and in the complex language of a personal, potentially brilliant symbolism.

    The Cozens monument was undoubtedly a reaction to what was going on across the street. A quiet reaction maybe, but an intriguing one. Much the same could be said for the assortment of tombs found back on the other side of the street, two doors down from the O’Connell’s. But where Cozens reacted with unassuming grace, the Lymn family responded with humour. They put no less work into their monuments – and a fair amount of money too – yet they never went so far as to add the last essential element: an actual human body. All they ever buried were animals.

    Here is a return to the sheds, albeit in miniature. Witness, for instance, the somewhat freakish ‘Tomb of the Albino Squirrel’, a small-scale riff on Jacques Voiles’s monument to his son Eugene. Or the small but stately ‘Grave of the Great Tit’, a blatant riposte to the O’Connell memorial, with its nine tiny Corinthian columns and minute metopes, each containing a roughly painted scene of a day in the life of the sadly departed tit. Parodies yes (or in light of this derivative nature of the Voiles and O’Connell death sheds, parodies of parodies) but these works clearly deserve more than smirks. Indeed, on top of these commendable satirical rip-offs, the Lymns seem to have created some unquestionably original designs. I’m thinking principally of their largest work which, if old photographs are anything to go by, was a sight to behold. Known by the curious name of ‘Rest in Peace Disease Ridden Pigeon’ this is surely the most architecturally adventurous design amongst the Colney Rise death sheds. About three foot tall and five foot across – and just about impossible to describe – it manages to combine Le Corbusier at his best, with sprinklings of Gaudi, Bergonesi, Lloyd-Wright, Frances Franken and works from the mid-late period of the Estonian Pseudo-Gothic Movement. Constructed from a mixture of coloured glass, four types of wood, six types of stone, crushed shells and, believe it or not polystyrene, it is truly unique. Never in history has a pigeon been given a better burial (with the possible exception of the Golden Pigeon of Dijon, which may or may not have been mythological). Humorous intent may have been behind it, but one cannot say that the Lymn’s did not put a lot of work into their jokes; so much, in fact, that it seems somewhat churlish to be amused. ‘Rest in Peace Disease Ridden Pigeon’ is a work of art in its own right; an original and highly innovative answer to the markers put down by Voiles and O’Connell. What matter the comical motive?

 
    Now, it has been argued in some quarters that the Lymns were not joking at all -  that they were simply animal-obsessed. The silver-plated gravestone dedicated to their shaggy dog was not an architectural shaggy dog story, it is said, but a heartfelt gesture made by a family with absolutely no taste. It isn’t humour, they say, but misplaced sincerity. Whoever these people are – and whatever quarters they are arguing in – I will not consent with their opinions. The Lymn family tombs cannot be read in any other way than as a dedicated satirical rejoinder to the ridiculous memorials being erected elsewhere in Colney Rise. Granted, I have in my travels come across no end of sincere and earnest people. Humans stuffed with so much sentiment it is near falling out of their ears. Characters with as much sense of humour as a remedial leech. And of these poor souls, those of the pet-keeping tendency do figure highly. There are few sights more miserable or pathetic than a man or woman mourning over the tragic demise of a pet butterfly, or some over mostly insignificant creature. Having said that, I find it hard to imagine that a family who should build a futurist inspired steel structure in their garden to commemorate the corpse of a stag beetle could have been motivated by anything other than the will to amuse. Solemnity may seize us all, pitiable fools as we are, but has it ever managed such a stranglehold? I think not. The Colney Rise Animal Tombs are not solemn monuments, but a canny set of stunts. A humorous aside that, some might say, was much needed, what with the increasingly grave nature of events, drawing ever closer (as we shall see) to their dark conclusion. God knows Voiles and O’Connell needed a satirical riposte. If only they had learnt from it.

    Before examining this ‘dark conclusion’, a final diversion. We stand outside No. 28, once home of Edmund Tilbury, a single, ruddy-faced ex-postman, long of arm and short of toe, with an excruciating habit (or so I am told) of wiping his nose on a large sycamore leaf that he carried about with him in the pocket of his favourite corduroy trousers. Born in 1903 and living right up until his death in 1982, Tilbury was a natural loner whose closest companions were a series of vellum-bound diaries, in which he left a careful account of every day from his fourteenth birthday onwards, each entry recorded in bright red ink, in his own particular handwriting, which slanted strongly to the left, except in long words, where it tipped over to the right. His spelling was consistently good, apart from the word ‘ignoramus’ which he insisted on spelling with an ‘e’. His use of grammar, meanwhile, was exemplary, particularly in the utilisation of semi-colons and parentheses (the way he used the latter was, I must say, close to superb). If he was ever enigmatic: it was in the following way. One day of every year was left blank in his diary. In 1953 this day was May 23rd. In 1961 this day was December 4th. In 1980 this day was January 14th. In 1927 this day was also January 14th.

    Other than these few, precious facts, we know very little about Tilbury. What we do know, however, is that he was awfully fond of birds. If anybody would have taken offence at the Lymn family’s ‘Rest in Peace Disease Ridden Pigeon’, Tilbury would have been that ‘anybody’. For his own part, yet, he was not interested in building memorials to dead birds. What is a dead bird to an ornithologist? A sadness, perhaps, but there is no good eulogising over it. He who loves live does not like to dwell on death. Stop things from dying by all means, but once they’ve kicked that can, there’s no going back. The milk is spilt. The bulb has blown. The kennel is conspicuously empty.

    Tilbury’s tomb (his 'death shed', if you will) was not, then, for the birds. Or not in that sense anyway. It was not created to commemorate dead birds, nor was it constructed above or around their feathery little corpses. It was not made to honour the dead – but to assist the living. In short, Tilbery’s tomb was a bird table. Or should I say a bird house? No, I shouldn’t. Bird town would be the most accurate way of putting it. For as bird tables go, this was no pole, platform and small shelter deal. Tilbury went for the full works. Several platforms of differing heights. Ladders and tunnels, areas for roosting and bathing, for playing, for eating and, maybe, for mating. Whatever a garden bird should need, Tilbury was onto it. This was a brand spanking shopping-mall for birds. A five-star hotel, a holiday camp and a breakfast bar all rolled into one.

    Through the faint veil of words that I am weaving, I perceive a row of shaking heads. There I was talking about tombs - and here I am talking about a deluxe bird table. Am I taking a superfluous flight from the true topic of my research? Am I hell! Let me tell you: this is no ordinary bird table. A tomb for birds it may not have been, but human tomb it was. Tilbury’s tomb, in fact. As well as an elaborate bird-orientated complex, Tilbury was building a memorial for himself. And, unlike the current owners of No. 28, I am not suggesting that the construction was simply created in his memory. I am instead saying that he intended to have his dead body lain (or more precisely, contained) within it. It was half-grave, half bird table. A wholly practical monument.

    To put it vaguely, as to whether Tilbury’s body was indeed 'carved up' into the, ah, 'requisite parts' and, so to speak, 'deposited' in its true architectural place is, as it happens, a tricky question. For one reason or another, the current owners seem overly keen to deny the true meaning of the piece. They claim, contend and assert with unnatural confidence that none of Tilbury’s body was ever deposited in this manner. My question to them is this: if it isn’t there, where is it?

    I fear I will waiting some time before receiving the answer. Never mind – there are plenty of other mysteries to be dealing with in the meantime. Not least the strange death of Darren O’Connell. Was he really crushed by one of the Colney Rise cherry trees? If so, which one? For as far as I can tell, none of the cherry trees of Colney Rise have ever fallen over. And if they had, I doubt they could have killed a man, unless they fell with remarkable precision; something I wouldn’t credit a cherry tree with.

    And so the expansions begin. A commemorative fountain – why hadn’t they thought of that before? Five dexterously carved dolphins career out of the water. A pearly-eyed mermaid sits on the edge, her fishy tail swishing alluringly. On the other side of the fence, Mr O’Connell’s temper sways furiously. The fountain adds the element of sound. Each droplet hitting the main body of water is another pin inserted into the Irishman’s heart. ‘Emile! Emile” Emile!’ Five years gone and they simply won’t stop rubbing it in. A water feature, of all things! Now, there’s a pretty thing..

    Just as the water spills snake-like from an amphora carried by a sweet-kneed and full-chested female figure striding across the rockery at the Northern end of the Voiles’s garden, so the first anniversary segues seamlessly into the second, the third, the fourth and so on. Mr O’Connell loses no time in honouring the fifth year since the death of Margaret O’Connell, adding a second death-shed to his already crowded garden, outside of which he places a large gong, which he strikes at regular intervals, as a gently aggravating reminder of his departed wife. Voiles replies shortly with another structure, a sort of grotto-cum-dog-kennel, in which a candle burns continuously. To this O’Connell is equal: he has been studying Trajan’s column, it transpires, and has something similar up his sleeve. It there it is, one morning in September 1964. A fifty foot column, adorned with a spiral frieze, slowly revealing the laborious tale of their courtship, from first sight to first kiss.

    The Hanging Gardens of Babylon would seem to have influenced Voiles’s next move. That and spite. Unfortunately, by this time both men found themselves somewhat restricted by space. Without knocking things down and starting again, there was a limit to what could be done. However, O’Connell hadn’t reckoned on Voiles’s determination. It took a lot of persuading, certainly, but finaly the Frenchman managed to persuade his neighbour on the other side to sell off half of his garden. O’Connell tried and failed to do the same on the other side. Now the two men were competing on an unequal field. Voiles had half a new garden to move into. This led to  increasingly desperate tactics on O'Connell's part, ranging from releasing a family of poisonous frogs into Voiles’s fountain, to buying up every wind chime in the county. Things were now coming to a head. Eugene Voiles and Margaret O’Connell were near forgotten in the death shed war. Any expansion was made in memory of its designer’s long-dead humility. There could be no doubt about it, Voiles and O’Connell were in direct competition – and Voiles, it seems, was winning. O’Connell needed something special. Another death would do it; an excuse to branch out; maybe even to take the death sheds out into the public domain. Yes. Another death in the family would be more than useful. It would be perfect, you might say.

    One winter morning in 1967, Darren O’Connell obliged.

    The same applies to all of those strange monuments that sprung up hither and thither in the back gardens of Colney Rise from the mid 50s to the late 70s, whether it be Edmund Tilbury’s solemn bird-table-tomb or the Lymn’s family’s wild memorials to roadkill rats and albino squirrels. Colney Rise contained a number of demented minds, this is certain, and a fair few sinister souls. But these same people had a remarkable grasp of architecture. And for this, if nothing else, they deserve a much greater fame. If only Ferrendale would grant them this, it might at last release the soggy curse that has dampened its roads for the last half century or so. If not, not only the town will suffer, but so will the world, for never knowing of Jacques Voiles; for never understanding Padraig O’Connell and for never replicating the faith of the Jeremy Lovitz Jnr, in whose garden the work of Reginald Cozen’s now sits, softly buffeted by the winds of forgetfulness, looking over the waters of neglect; only slightly warmed by those sweet rays of hope that glow whenever someone (maybe even you, dear reader) holds it in their thoughts.

Read Part One

Further Selections From Underneath the Bunker

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