The Magnificent Seven

I looked after the Carousel again today, with various Friends of West Norwood Cemetery dropping by every so often. There was a queue of folk when I arrived to open up the chapel, one of whom had been involved in creating the Carousel. It was great to talk to him and find out about the process of putting it together. He and two other young architects drew the scape of the Magnificent Seven London Cemeteries, then a machine cut it out of aluminium. Finally, it was placed within the Carousel. Visitors can turn the scape around the drum with a handle. There's a bulb in the centre of the Carousel that projects shadows of the scape on to the chapel walls. There are five Carousels around London for the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics. I'll have to track down the one at Borough, which is the nearest one to me after West Norwood.

I'm a bit better at remembering which part of the scape belongs to which of the seven cemeteries. Highgate's the easiest (Karl Marx's tomb), then West Norwood, but Abney Park, Kensal Green, Tottenham Hale, Nunhead and Brompton have been less easy to stick in the brain.

There were around 60 visitors today, which isn't bad for an out-of-the-way cemetery. Half of those had been on a Dicken's Tour visiting various graves of people who had a connection with him. One group of visitors was a rock band called i.Am.i - I scared the drummer by saying 'Hello' from a distant, dark corner of the chapel. I was a small lady in summer clothes and he was a tall bloke in black leather - who should have scared whom?

All in all, it was a brilliant afternoon and I chatted with lots of interesting people. I even got to try out a couple of cameras from the 1950s - heavy machinery with dials that gave proper clicks and clunks when you turned them. One being a Robot. I missed the hot day - the chapel was, thankfully, very cool. The guinea pigs very much enjoyed the dandelion leaves I'd collected from around the gravestones.