Hidden Henley

A few years ago I noticed a bouquet of flowers placed in front of the peculiar Marmoset’s grave stone along the Fairmile and never found out who is keeping this up or why. Then there appeared a long stemmed rose. So although it’s very old, there must have been people around who feel strongly about it. Perhaps anyone reading this who has information about this curiosity will let me know, especially since there cannot be many more years left before the text becomes unreadable; plus recently the area is looking dilapidated.

The story goes that this marmoset kept company around the neck of a former nursing sister from the First World War, an eccentric Miss Jekyll, in the manner of a live version of an old-fashioned fox fur. She evidently dressed in long black clothes and lived in New Street. She was also supposed to have been a regular customer at the well-known former George Bushell’s photography shop in Hart Street near the church.

The grave itself is next to the ditch where the Assendon Spring may flow again if we have a rainy winter, and between the old brick and flint wall that borders some of the so-called deer park and the main road. The large Red Oak tree behind the stone has been felled.

The inscription can be just about made out to read:

“Jimmy

A tiny marmoset

August 16^th 1937

There isn’t enough darkness in the world

to quench the light of one small candle”