Does anybody remember that TV series with Billy Connolly where he did a travelogue around various countries? I remember the one in New Zealand. He was somewhere on the south island in a small town whose name escapes me, at a grave plot containing two graves.
The story he told was about a stranger who turned up one day (back in the early part of last century I think), who was on the point of death. Nobody knew who he was or where he had come from, but one of the residents took him in and tried to care for him. After a short while, he died.
The two graves contain the bodies of the stranger and the carer who, because there was no name available, ensured that the gravestone of the stranger read, instead of a name: "Here Lies Somebody's Darling".
This morning on the usual cycle commute, I started the climb up the gradient towards Chessington Zoo and noticed that a line of traffic was stationery from about halfway to the top of the ridge. There were a couple of blokes standing on the pavement at the head of the queue and naturally I thought "Ah. Accident."
As I got level with the car that was waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic, I sneaked between it and the rear of the two vans that were stationary and passed by on the right. As I passed the second of the two vans, there was a staionary sports car in front of which was one of the occupants of the van crouched in the road.
In one hand he held a mobile phone through which he was giving directions to the scene. In the other he held the head of a supine figure whose spectacles were lying on the road in front of him in a seeping pool of head blood.
As I passed, I thought of the person who was going to get that phone call later on this morning, then it popped into my head:
"Here lies somebody's darling."
Hey. Let's be careful out there. 😐