On The Hill Podcast: Unearthing the Hidden Stories Buried at Falmouth Cemetery

A chance meeting with a cat at a Cornish cemetery has inspired a Falmouth University lecturer to launch a new podcast and reawaken the lives and stories of people buried in the town.

The idea for the On The Hill podcast began during a walk around St Euny Cemetery, Redruth, when Dr Sherezade Garcia Rangel, Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, noticed a black cat sat on a grave.

“Immediate story,” she said. “A mourning pet, a familiar, a reincarnated soul talking to its former being? The idea of these graves telling their stories came to mind then.”

After this initial visit, Shere was keen to learn more about the county’s cemeteries and the stories just waiting to be unearthed. And after a trip to Falmouth Cemetery with local amateur historian Tony Casey, she was struck by the number of people buried there who hadn’t been born in the area.

Researching, Reassembling, Retelling and Reimagining the stories buried in Cornish Cemeteries

Over a year of meeting people, walking through the cemetery and shaping her ideas, led Shere to officially launch her On The Hill podcast at the Folk Horror Conference held at Falmouth University this September.

So far, Shere has planned, written, produced and edited two episodes, with the third being released today. She has also been joined by fellow lecturers Amy Lilwall and A.J Dalton to discuss the many stories of those who lived and are buried here in Falmouth. The first episode features Sir John Gay Newton Alleyne, 3rd Baronet of Four Hills, Barbados and looks at the wider British Empire as well as Falmouth’s own aims to improve the lives of its cholera-hit residents. The second episode focuses on Mary Monk, the first female sanitary inspector and health visitor in Portsmouth as well as the UK’s efforts to reduce child mortality in the late 19th century.

And it is the story behind episode three, that has had the most impact on Shere, as she explains: “One of the stories, or lack of, which has stayed with me the most is that of World War I Chung Shin. This is one of the first gravestones I sought for myself in my first summer walk through the cemetery with Tony and when I was walking there, I noticed a robin perching on a branch nearby.

“He was right next to the grave, which made me look more closely. Chung Shin’s gravestone only said a few things: when he died, that he was in the Merchant Navy and that he was a cabin boy. I thought about his family; had they learned about his death? Who were they? When was the last time they saw him?

“It made me think about Falmouth as a port and as an international community. I knew then it was this cemetery I wanted to start from.”

She added that On The Hill was already gaining fans following its launch with almost 300 downloads so far and people listening in the UK, Canada, Australia, USA, Greece and Italy.

A fan of listening to podcasts herself, Shere has excitedly taken on the task of producing her own series.

“Following the success of our Nest podcast, I understood a part of the form of how On The Hill works: new writing and interview,” she said.

Logo by C F Sherratt

“On The Hill was initially inspired by another project called Until the Day Break which was a site-specific play on a cemetery in Redruth. I love theatre, but I knew to venture in that direction would be even bigger, too much for a small project as this was supposed to be. That’s where the idea of making a podcast instead came into mind – it would offer durability in a way that a play didn’t, I could produce and edit it on campus and it would be freely available research just as all those other podcasts had been for me.”

And why this subject? “There’s something about cemeteries and the stories of those who are dead that begs to be spoken out loud,” said Shere.

Looking back on the past 12 months, Shere added: “I had no idea the project would be this enormous. That has been revealed through the research and the production process. And it is likely to be bigger.... this is only Season One, our pilot season.”

On The Hill’s Episode 03 just released!

You can listen to Episode 3 below, which tells the story of Chung Shin, Cabin Boy of the Merchant Navy killed by a U-Boat on February 1917. This episode also looks at Falmouth Cemetery and the history of the town during World War I. Featured in this episode is new writing by Sherezade Garcia Rangel which is read by Amy Lilwall, who also goes on to interview Shere. Alumni Alex Horn reads out a few fragments from historical documments.

If you want to listen to the rest of the series click here. Don’t forget to follow On The Hill on Twitter and to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts.

by Cherie Woodhouse