Memorial For Jhonn Balance  

 

 

 

Jhonn's ashes were scattered around a Hawthorn tree by Bassenthwaite lakeside in Cumbria on the Spring Solstice following his death. For Jhonn the Hawthorn was the faeriest of the trees. Next to the tree are buried a male and female blackbird. The place is somewhere he loved, with the still expanse of the lake and Dodd summit towering above. Great Dodd was the first peak we ever climbed, only to find a memorial plaque to 'Ian and John' at the top !

Jhonn and I had decided on some signs that we would send each other when death separated us. When we died we said we would catch some blackbird's wing and fly away, our spirit free of this mortal coil. And so the blackbird was chosen as a sign from beyond the grave of the other's presence. When I arrived back at my house in London after Jhonn's funeral I opened my front gate to find a male blackbird, dead, on my doorstep. I needed a sign. I picked it up, it was still warm. I went through the house and opened the back door to the garden, there was a female blackbird lying dead on the back step, still warm. The air was silent. Peace.

The two blackbirds buried next to the hawthorn.

Thanks to the Dark Star fund and the Woodland Trust, there is a memorial plaque and grove post in a small woodland called Church Plantation, situated near the hawthorn. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the fund and made the plaque possible and especially to the late John Deek  who started the fund.

The plaque reads :

Moon's Milk Spills From My Unquiet Skull And Forms A White Rainbow

Jhonn Balance

(1962 - 2004)

 

 

  

Jhonn's Hawthorn is beyond the churchyard of St Bega and its ancient Yews.

Please do not mark or take from the tree, this would not honour the memory of Jhonn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Dodd Summit

 

 

St Bega  Bassenthwaite Lakeside  Cumbria  England

 St Bega , signposted Bassenthwaite Church, is off the A591 between Bassenthwaite village and Keswick. The turning to the church is on the left coming from Keswick, about ½ mile after Mirehouse, a well sign posted National Trust site and car park for Dodd's wood and Dodd summit.

Google Maps and Earth will send you too St Bega in Bassenthwaite Village Not The St Bega by the lakeside on the maps below.

 

 

                                    Jhonn Balance Memorial Plaque