This is the view from Box Hill in Surrey. It is a short, steepish climb to the 735 foot summit and I was surprised how may people had made it up there until I saw a large car park operated by the National Trust near the top.
On the way up we passed this intriguing memorial.
Peter Labilliere, his name is spelt incorrectly on the stone, was born in Dublin in 1725. His family were Huguenots. After trying his hand as a school master he joined the Marines, retiring as a major around 1860. At first he lived in Chiswick before moving to a small cottage in Dorking in 1789. He was a pacifist and for some reason was supported by the Duke of Devonshire who gave him a pension of £100 a year and invited him to stay at Chatsworth for a month every year. He died in June (not July as stated on the stone) 1800 and crowds came from London and Surrey to see him being buried upside down. He makes appearances in various books about English Eccentrics and features in this 1940 poem by WH Auden – written in America. Auden and Isherwood’s cowardice in running away to America attracted the disapprobation of many including Evelyn Waugh. In Put Out More Flags, Parsnip and Pimpernel are thought to be based on them.
Anyway, here’s the poem; it perpetuates the misspelling on the stone:
[We] Get angry like Labellière,
Who, finding no invectives hurled
Against a topsy-turvy world
Would right it, earning a quaint renown
By being buried upside-down;
Unwilling to adjust belief,
Go mad in a fantastic grief
Where no adjustment need be done …
We were on Box Hill en route to a Golden Wedding lunch party in a lovely garden in Sussex. Our host made potted shrimps as a starter and his wife made Summer pudding – in the middle we had cold, rare roast beef and salad. Bertie ate a selection of corks and got stung by a wasp on his paw. He got sick in the night and is feeling rather sorry for himself this morning.
