The Bench With the Early Plaque
The small brass plaque at the top of Fenner's Hill has said FOR MARGARET, WHO LIKED IT HERE since 2019, and Margaret reads it most Tuesdays.
The bench at the top of Fenner's Hill carries a small brass plaque. It reads: FOR MARGARET, WHO LIKED IT HERE. Her family had it made in a hurry, in a bad week, after misunderstanding a telephone call from a hospital.
Margaret found out about it in the spring, when she walked up the hill and sat down on it. She is ninety-one. She says the wording is perfectly accurate and she would not change a word, except possibly the tense.
She goes up most Tuesdays now. Walkers sometimes stop, read the plaque, and say something kind to the old woman sitting beneath it, and she thanks them warmly on the family's behalf. One man told her that Margaret sounded like a lovely person. She said she had heard exactly the same thing.
The family have twice offered to take it down. She will not hear of it. A bench is a good place to be remembered, she says, and a far better place to be remembered early, while there is still some use to be got out of the sitting.
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