A tomb tour around the British Isles
(Cover illustration by James Lewis jwestonlewis.co.uk)
From the publisher
On turning thirty-three, Jack Cooke was the picture of rude health. Married, with two young children, his best years ahead of him, death was a distant concern, imagined yet never dwelled upon. But after a sobering visit to a local churchyard, a series of thoughts crept up on him that he couldn’t shake off. Why are we all so scared of death? Why does the modern world strive so hard to deny its existence? And what secrets and stories lie all around us, in graveyards up and down the country?
Cooke’s new morbid obsession led him to convert a clapped-out hearse into a campervan, embarking on a meandering drive around Britain in search of famous tombs and forgotten burials. Along the way, he launches a daredevil trespass into Highgate Cemetery at night, stumbles across the remains of the Welsh druid who popularised cremation, and has time to sit and ponder the imponderables at the graveside of the Lady of Hoy, an 18th-century suicide victim whose body was exquisitely preserved by the bog in which she was buried.
The End of the Road is a quixotic, charming and surprisingly uplifting travelogue about a hidden world that we too often ignore. Beautifully written and wonderfully imagined, Cooke’s journey reminds us that there’s beauty and solace to be found in the scattered history beneath our feet.
