Topsie, Lorna, and Dennis - Malvern Wells cemetery

Blipmeet - Great Malvern, Worcestershire - Tuesday 24th May 2022 - please spread the word!

Both Hazel and Bruce are now in Worcestershire in the run-up to the Diary of the war podcast series launch event next Tuesday. This has given us an opportunity to look for Lorna's grave in Malvern Wells Cemetery. Lorna's is the cross with roundel (is that the right word?) a nimbus on the right hand side of this photograph. She shares her burial spot with her mother. The inscription (in the extra) reads:

In ever loving memory of
Alice Ethel
dear wife of
Albert Edward Lloyd
who passed away 20th March 1959
and in dear memory of
Lorna Lloyd BA (Cantab)
their only daughter
who died 2nd February 1942
Aged 28
Blessed are the pure in heart for
they shall see God Matt 5 8

The inscription is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it shows pride in Lorna's educational achievements - presumably that of her father Bertie and/or her brother Theo - even though we know that Lorna cannot have graduated from Cambridge as a woman in the 1930s. In addition, we see that the age of Lorna's mother at death is not given here. We have already noted in the LornaL journal that we have evidence of Topsie lying about her age, and assumed that her parents might have been embarrassed about their six year age gap. It looks like it was still politic not to reveal this when she died.

On the other side of the path from Lorna and her mother's tombstone is that of Lorna's step-cousin Denis Weston, who was killed when training to be an RAF pilot. It's the one with the green vase on it. We knew that Denis would be nearby from these words that Lorna's brother Theo wrote in the heartbreaking letter to his father on the day of Lorna's burial: 'We laid our darling to rest, most beautifully this afternoon in Malvern Wells Cemetery, very near Denis Weston, of whom she was very fond.'