Can a person ever truly be a failure?😞
In St Peter’s Churchyard, Heysham, in north west England, stands the strangest gravestone I have ever seen. As a poet myself, I was naturally intrigued by the inscription Poet, philosopher & Failure. It seems unreasonable to suggest that a person can simultaneously be a poet, a philosopher, and be a failure in absolute terms. But perhaps it was a wry in-joke?
The mystery of this idiosyncratic gravestone only deepens as one reads further.
On the lowest block, a quotation from Hamlet appears: Alas, poor Yorick. The poet, philosopher & failure inscription is thought to be about James Jones, who regularly contributed poems to the Sunday Chronicle and, over the course of his incredible 92-year life, no doubt experienced his fair share of failure. The Hamlet quotation is etched across the grave stone for his third wife, Sadie. It is unclear whether she requested this quotation or whether James Jones decided upon it (he survived her by a year and thus would have made the funeral arrangements).
Two of Jones’s wives (both from different parts of Yorkshire) were laid to rest in this spot overlooking the Irish Sea. There are conflicting records about whether James Jones is buried with them or in Torrisholme Cemetery. Either way, if their gravestones are anything to go by, they were, all of them, colourful characters indeed. And how wonderful to leave behind a mystery that may never quite be solved.
Immortality unlocked.
As to whether I think the inscription at the top of the tombstone is strictly accurate, well, of course I don’t.
In the words of K. Bradford Brown: an attempt can be a failure, a person never is.
For the full Lancaster Guardian article on James Jones, click here.
Only if they let themselves, failure is also a big part of learning and growth and success is defined personally.
One person's success , is another persons failure. If I was a billionaire, then I've failed a lot of people, no one needs a billion pounds it's just hoarding wealth. I'd rather live in a ditch.
For me success is progression and achieving your goals no matter how long that takes, as long as you are growing as a person you are winning at life and no one not even yourself can disprove that.
Haven’t seen anything quite like it but it is thought provoking enough to be worth looking into a character that would leave such a memory. I was visiting old colonial family graves last week and noticed that many old stones included how they died or a few words of their accomplishments, a practice that I think needs to come back.