In loving memory

It is always tempting to look for the oldest grave to be found in a graveyard, but this, dated 1937, is one of the more recent at Carmunnock church, where the lairs are mostly from the nineteenth century. Nan's stone is small and cheap compared to the ornate stones of merchants and wealthy farmers that are usual in this graveyard. The carving is basic, perhaps amateur. Someone loved her, and mourned her , and found the money for her little stone. The inscription at the bottom, 'for of such is the kingdom of heaven' suggests that, at the age of seventeen, she was thought of as a child.

It's a nice spot, with snowdrops around it now, and a summer-flowering tree above. The stone isn't fixed in the ground, but is placed against the tree, so Nan may not even be buried just there, but she is somewhere in the small and ancient burial ground.

Gravestones always tease the casual visitor with their brief accounts of birth and death, and Nan Drummond's stone is almost as brief as possible. She lived, and died, and was held in loving memory.