Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Darwin’s daughter
When we visit Malvern priory I like to look at the old grave stones. A lot of them are unreadable now, being a couple of hundred years old. I was very surprised to see an elderly lady tending one of the graves. She came up to me and asked if I was interested in History. She told me about the grave she had been looking after; It was the Grave of Anne Darwin, who was brought to Malvern by her father, Charles Darwin, when she was ten years old to take the cure. She had T.B., unfortunately she died and was buried at the Priory. The lady told me that although she’d lived there for over 50 years she didn’t know about this until recent years. She lives in a flat which contains the room where Anne died.

Looking again at the grave stones I could see that a lot of people were from other parts of England, a lot of them were women and girls.

The cure consisted of drinking lots of water and walking the hills. I think you’ll agree that a lot of people would benefit from that today.

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