Where do old lefties go when they turn up their toes? No, not to the European Trade Union Confederation. I am referring to Highgate cemetery, which I visited on my last trip to London. My main purpose was to pay homage to Karl Marx, who is clearly the main attraction. But I was surprised by the number of luminaries, many of them with strong left-wing backgrounds, who share his last resting place.
Just across from the Father of Communism was Paul Foot, indefatigable investigative journalist for Private Eye. A plot facing Karl Marx must have involved either a large amount of money or some friends in high places. And when I say high ....
There were some exotic celebrities. Farzad Bazoft, the Observer journalist of Iranian origin who was executed by Saddam Hussein on trumped-up charges of spying, was commemorated with a headstone in black marble, although I'm not sure his remains actually lay underneath it. Another famous Iranian neighbour was Mansoor Hekmat, founder of both the Iranian and Iraqi Workers Communist parties, whose headstone below a bust of his handsome head bore a touching inscription from his widow: "To a great man, the essence of our lives, the polestar of my existence, the love of my life". Would that we all departed this world to such praise.
Redmond O'Neill sounded like a true Irish revolutionary, as hinted at by the quote from Che Guevara: "The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love". In reality his life was a little less exciting.
I couldn't find the graves of Malcolm McLaren, Beryl Bainbridge, Max Wall, Michael Faraday, or Alexander Litvinenko, some of which might have been in the West section, but did encounter the last resting place of Sir Ralph Richardson and - Lord preserve us - Jeremy Beadle, who is interred immediately adjacent to the esteemed literary agent Pat Kavanagh. In cemeteries, rather like on airplanes, you cannot always choose your neighbours.
I was touched by the small, plain, unassuming gravestone of Douglas Adams, author of my favourite book ever, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". All it said was "Douglas Adams, writer, 1952-2001". I said a silent, belated farewell: "So long and thanks for all the fish".
Highgate, which opened in 1839, is a beautiful cemetery and heavily wooded. It nearly fell into disrepair and was saved by donations from the Friends of Highgate Cemetery in 1975. There is a £3 charge to visit Highgate East, and £7 for Highgate West, which can only be visited with a guide. You might think this is a bit steep to visit a cemetery, but the people on the gate told me that Highgate receives no public funding apart from a small English Heritage grant. I was appalled to learn that not one of the three boroughs it straddles (Camden, Haringey & Islington) contributes a penny to its maintenance. I dare say it's not cheap to be buried there, but only 35 or so plots are purchased every year, and the areas off the "celebrity walk" are becoming quite overgrown. There is a chapel in the West part, but a generally secular tone to the burial ground, which explains the appeal to left-wingers and revolutionaries.
