His Passion for Funerals

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 940, 5 April 1930, Page 18

His Passion for Funerals

Prefers Attending Them to Witnessing Football Matches . . . Quaint Hobby of “Champion Letter Writer ...

EC RETS of a diary kept ; by a Mr. Algernon AshJfe; ton have been revealed jbv him to a newspaper. | representative. Mr. Ash-; ton is known to fame as the champion writer of letters to the Press! For 55 years Mr. Ashton has kept a diary, and for the same number of • years he has been visiting graves and attending funerals. He is now in his j 71st year—a whimsical, gracious little personality. The secrets are not important ones. In 1575 Mr. Ashton ‘ purchased a flute for six thalers,” over which be rejoiced exceedingly. He was then 15 years old and living in Leipsic. A little later Mr. Ashton was “suffering agonies” as a student, because : he stammered. And so on. down the decades, Mr. Ashton has assiduously written of the tiny, intimate, personal : matters of himself, his mother and ■ sisters, with an occasional reference to his graveyard and funeral visits. “I always wrote my diary at night,” said Mr. Ashton. “I have never in- ; tended it for publication. It is solely j for my own interest, so that I can see, j almost to the hour, what I was doing years ago. “When I was a boy of ten my mother took me to see the remains of Ignaz Mosclieles. the musician, and then to the funeral. I thought to myself, What an impressive affair! This must

be my life hobby. Fascinating Hobby! “Ever since I have spent all my spare time in attending funerals and visiting the graves of great persons. It is a fascinating liobby. “Give me a funeral any day to a

football match. T can understand the one, but not the other. Every man has his own particular sport. ‘‘My (liary has helped me. Here, at the age of 71, 1 can trace my love of funerals and monuments even as a very young man. Thus, on October 8, 1881, I walked to Chelsea and looked at the house where Thomas Carlyle died. Then I -went to see the house in Curzon Street where Lord .Beaconsfield expired. “Often when I am attending a funeral—my last was that of Mr. T. P. O'Connor —the clergyman -will take

me for a relative and warmly wring me by the hand, with words of sympathy. It is all very nice, j “1 love tombstones, too. Often j when I am visiting one I see a funeral j is going to take place, and I always I dash off to see if it is somebody of J importairce.”