9 January 2020, City of London Cemetery

Thursday 9 January 2020: City of London Cemetery

LETTER (by Edith to her aunt Edith Walkinshaw)

[Holloway Prison]

(read by Nicki Toay)

December 23, 1922

Dear Auntie – It was good of you to send me in the book; it will help to pass a good many weary hours away, when my mind is more settled.

At present I can’t think – I can’t even feel. When I was told the result of the appeal yesterday, it seemed the end of everything.

In Life, Death seems too awful to contemplate, especially when Death is the punishment for something I have not done, did not know of, either at the time or previously.

I have been looking back over my life & wondering what it has brought me – I once said “Only ashes and dust and bitterness”, and today it seems even less than this. – if there can be less.

This last ordeal seems to be the ultimate end of that gradual drifting through Life, passing each event, each disappointment, so many of which I have encountered and met with a smiling face and an aching heart.

Auntie dear, I have learnt the lesson that it is not wise to meet and try to overcome all your trials alone – when the end comes, as it has to me, nobody understands.

If only I had been able to forfeit my pride, that pride that resents pity, and talk to someone, I can see now how different things might have been, but it’s too late now to rake over ashes in the hope of finding some live coal.

When I first came into this world, and you stood to me as godmother, I am sure you never anticipated such an end as this for me. Do you know, people have told me from time to time that to be born on Christmas Day was unlucky, and my answer has always been, “Superstition is only good for ignorant people”, but now I am beginning to believe that they are right; it is unlucky.

However, what is to be will be.

I’m glad I’ve talked to you for a little while. I feel better – it seems to lift me out of this abyss of depression into which I have fallen, and I know you will understand, not only what I have said, but all my thoughts that are not collected enough to put on paper.

Thank Leonard for me for his letter. It made me laugh, and it’s good to laugh just for five minutes. I’ll write to him another day. I can’t now – but I know he will understand.

EDITH

LETTER (by Edith to Bessie)

[Date: Boxing Day 1922]

(read by René Weis)

Dear [Bessie]

I wanted to write to you yesterday and yet I couldn’t. I could do nothing but sit and think. Who was it said, ‘Some days we sits and thinks, and some we simply sit’? Well, yesterday was a ‘sitting and thinking day’.

I got your letter on Saturday. Yes, the result of the appeal was a great shock – I had such hopes of it – not only hopes for mercy, but hopes for justice; but I realise how very difficult it is to fight prejudice.

If you have facts to fight, and you fail, you seem more reconciled, but when it’s only prejudice – oh, it’s awful.

You talk about not having to pay the extreme penalty. Do you know that I don’t dread that at all. I feel that would be easier than banishment – wrongful banishment for life. I feel no apprehension of what might lie ahead after this life.

Yesterday I was twenty-nine; it’s not really very old, I suppose, and yet it seems so to me.

Yesterday I was thinking about everything that has ever happened, it seems to help in all sorts of way when I do this. I realise what a mysterious thing life is. We all imagine we can mould our own lives – we seldom can, they are moulded for us – just by the laws and rules and conventions of this world, and if we break any of these, we only have to look forward to a formidable and unattractive wilderness.

I’ve often thought how good it would be to talk, to pour out everything, it might have pained as well, but it would be pain that comes with sudden relief of intolerable hurt.

However, I’m going to forget all that now. I’m going to hope– because everybody tells me so. I’m going to live in those enormous moments when the whole of life seems bound up in the absolute necessity to win.

Thank you so much for writing to me, and helping to keep me cheerful.

EDITH

ABIDE WITH ME

(read by Jean Sykes)

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word,
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terror, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile,
And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee.
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.