Visiting - District Line to West Brompton, turn right, I’m next door.

To whom it may concern,

WARNING: Beware, this is not another unbelievable Dracula or Frankenstein story, written to thrill and scare you.

It is simply my introduction, and true account of how I became the "Voice of the Past".

A long tale for a website, short for a commute, this is for those who still read novels, women especially, as well as for all passing time upon life's journey, a little curiosity from beyond the grave; and what a grave it is.

Hopefully my revelations may give you an insight into current issues, for I do assure you we have been here before.

So I shall begin at my end, the most appropriate place to start, as the rest is in my books, of which there are more to be published.

Since 1837 we have become Victorian, more industrial and much less elegant. However I began reporting when I was fifteen in the Georgian age of deference, formality and glamour that alas we shall see no more.

I beg to disappoint but it was not another dark and stormy night, nor was I a dashing, notorious rogue with whom every respectable young lady secretly hoped to fall in love. No, I must have been around seventy-five and "groaning with the years" when I first met Joseph Bonomi.

It was an age of séances and spiritualism. Charles Dickens had published A Christmas Carol to extraordinary success and everyone seemed convinced that the veil between this world and the next was becoming thinner by the day. I was no different.

London meanwhile had a rather more practical problem: where to put its dead. The overcrowded churchyards had become a public disgrace, so seven great new cemeteries sprang up around the capital. They were not merely places of burial but fashionable parks where respectable families might spend a Sunday afternoon strolling amongst monuments to other people's prosperity.

Death had become fashionable.

Families enriched by British Empire, industry and invention now competed in the cemetery as enthusiastically as they had in the drawing room. For the really wealthy a modest headstone no longer sufficed. Every merchant wished to be mistaken for a banker, every banker for a royal, and every rich widow insisted that grief should be carved from the finest granite.

Naturally, where there is money there is scandal.

By night these magnificent cemeteries attracted a rather less respectable clientele, giving me ample material for my Scandal Gallery pamphlets. Years ago I began by writing of churchyard grave robbers, body snatchers, dubious land deals, quarrelling undertakers and funeral arrangements that deserved considerably closer scrutiny than they usually received. The new cemeteries were in a quite different league.

The proprietors were naturally not always pleased.

The advertisers, however, were delighted with the growing response.

Before long my weekly pamphlets carried notices from undertakers, monumental masons, sculptors and even the cemetery companies themselves. Death, I discovered, had become one of London's most competitive businesses.

It was through those advertisements that I first encountered Joseph Bonomi.

Born in 1796 into a distinguished family of architects—his father having worked alongside Robert and John Adam—Bonomi had become one of Britain's foremost Egyptologists, sculptors and draughtsmen.

Ever since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt half a century earlier, Britain had developed an insatiable appetite for everything Egyptian. Greek and Roman styles still governed most public buildings, but Egypt suggested something older, stranger and infinitely more mysterious, hinting at forgotten wisdom and immortality.

Bonomi had travelled extensively in Egypt from 1824, recording its monuments with extraordinary accuracy. At Abu Simbel he even devised his own drawing apparatus to copy the temple's intricate decorations faithfully.

Now, having returned to London, he was overseeing the creation of the magnificent Egyptian Court at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, where the Great Exhibition of 1851 would find a permanent and altogether more exotic afterlife.

Egyptian obelisks, sphinxes and statues of Bastet, the cat goddess, were increasingly popular with Bonomi’s clientele, I even considered ordering one for myself and his advertisements soon became regular features in the Scandal Gallery.

My readers admired his illustrations enormously, and so did I.

My own fascination with Egypt and the hereafter steadily increased, whilst Bonomi, like those I wrote about, discovered that appearing in my publication strangely endowed prestige.

Indeed, if one's indiscretions were destined to be exposed, there was no better place for them to appear.

My little publication had grown from recounting the nocturnal exploits of ladies of the night in churchyards, watched over by lichen-encrusted stone angels, to chronicling the indiscretions of ministers, princes and the great families of Europe.

Strange though it may seem, being featured in the Scandal Gallery had become almost fashionable.

Business prospered.

Death had become the latest investment opportunity.

A monument was not merely a marker of mortality but a declaration of success, and no commission excited Bonomi more than the one offered by Hannah Courtoy of Portman Square.

Hannah had married well, inherited handsomely and had absolutely no intention of being remembered by an ordinary gravestone. She wanted a monument that would announce her arrival in the next world, whilst reminding those remaining in this one that she had left her mark.

Hannah had fallen completely under Egypt's spell.

Her two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary Ann, also acquired much of their mother's enthusiasm.

Osiris, Isis, the weighing of the heart and the Field of Reeds were not curious legends to them but comforting possibilities. If eternity existed, they intended to arrive there in suitable style.

The Courtoys' interest in Egypt soon broadened into a fascination with spiritualism. They spoke freely of Isis, held regularly séances and discussed the possibility that science might one day attain what religion merely promised.

Devoted to one another, the daughters never married. Sharing their mother’s fascination with ancient Egypt, and the goddess Isis, they quietly assumed they would one day occupy the same mausoleum.

Where they differed was over the address.

Hannah wanted Highgate.

The magnificent Egyptian Avenue represented everything she admired. If London had built a gateway worthy of the Pharaohs, then that was where she intended to spend eternity.

Her daughters preferred Brompton.

It was newer, conveniently central, and above all, considerably cheaper.

"Brompton is perfectly respectable," Elizabeth observed.

"And perfectly affordable," added Mary Ann.

"Respectable, affordable?" Hannah replied. "My dears, I have never aspired to be merely respectable, nor to anything perfectly affordable."

Hannah had her way, after all she held the purse strings, so Bonomi prepared a magnificent Egyptian design for a Highgate mausoleum.

Then fate intervened.

Hannah died before a single stone had been laid.

Whilst she rested temporarily in Brompton's catacombs, her daughters inherited not only her wishes but also Bonomi's drawings and the account that would accompany them.

Practicality prevailed.

The mausoleum would indeed be built—but at Brompton.

The same magnificent Egyptian design could be erected for considerably less money and, standing almost alone, would attract far more admiration than amongst Highgate's increasingly crowded splendours.

It would become the magnificent and permanent home of all three women's mortal remains, and a doorway to the beyond.

Mother and daughters—together forever.

It was at Hannah's funeral that Joseph Bonomi introduced me to Samuel Alfred Warner.

Warner was an inventor of extraordinary reputation. Parliament had debated his inventions for years.

He claimed to possess secret weapons, invisible shells and explosive devices capable of destroying ships from miles away.

Some considered him a genius. Others a charlatan. The truth was that nobody could quite decide.

Only a few years earlier, before a crowd of some forty thousand spectators at Brighton, Warner had apparently destroyed the 300-ton John o' Gaunt with one of his mysterious "Invisible Shells".

Among those watching were peers, Members of Parliament, naval officers, bishops and foreign diplomats. Some believed they had witnessed the future of warfare.

Others insisted the entire affair was an elaborate deception.

Whatever the truth, even the Duke of Wellington considered Warner's claims important enough to demand an official investigation.

Warner himself possessed remarkable confidence.

His involvement in the Courtoy affair arose from one of the sisters' séances. They had become interested in Faraday’s electrical inventions, though readily admitting to not understanding, nor wanting to understand the science, only what electricity could achieve.

The future was calling and it was electrical. It could be seen in storms, could it reach beyond Earth itself?

Thoroughly taken with Warner's reputation and scientific ingenuity, Elizabeth and Mary Ann wondered whether modern science might accomplish what religion merely promised: to transport a spirit safely into eternity, and an Egyptian eternity at that.

Warner assured them it could. He even proposed a suitable apparatus to be incorporated into the mausoleum, for a fee upon which all parties readily agreed.

A few years later both gentlemen invited me to inspect the now nearly completed Courtoy Mausoleum.

I turned to Bonomi.

"This is beautiful," I said. "Quite incredible."

"Thank you," he replied. "I believe this is my finest work."

Indeed, the mausoleum is half as tall again as any similar tomb in Brompton. Set apart to the east, where the plots were cheaper, it stands shaded by trees, surrounded by stones.

Modestly alone, it shuns the upstart riff-raff and hoi polloi jostling for prominence along the Central Avenue, the Great Circle and beneath its colonnades, or forgotten altogether in the catacombs.

In saving a fortune, Elizabeth and Mary Ann had created what is Brompton Cemetery's most handsome and extraordinary monument—and extraordinary it most certainly is.

Massive yet elegantly proportioned, fashioned from polished grey granite, it bears no inscription beyond the modest initials C H upon its bronze door that was already bearing signs of verdigris.

Had it stood sentinel by the rushes of the mighty Nile between Thebes and Karnak, no traveller would have questioned its antiquity.

Peering through the open door I could see an Egyptian frieze ran below the ceiling.

Ahead a circular mirror was set inside a large brass cogwheel, flanked above by two smaller cogs, the whole mechanism driven by a cogwheel to the lower right. Lower left stood a Leyden jar connected to a small glass globe, with matching glass spheres mounted either side near the top of the apparatus.

The whole contrivance had a certain familiarity. I had seen something remarkably similar at Doctor Graham's Temple of Health and Hymen, powering his Celestial Bed, which I had written about extensively in my Scandal Gallery pamphlets.

"So this is merely an illusion to comfort grieving souls?" I enquired.

"If it allows the living to live peacefully," Warner replied, ushering me inside onto the boards above the void dug for the body, "and transports the dead, who make no complaint, it has done its work."

Warner explained that one trial remained and that they required a novice to test the contraption—someone they could trust to remain discreet, preferably a gentleman with an interest in Egypt and the hereafter.

Only then could they be certain everything would function correctly when Hannah was finally laid beneath the great stone slab, upon which her daughters would spend one last private moment.

Concentrating hard in the mirror, much like in a séance, they would watch the cogs turn as they willed the machine to convey their mother's spirit to the Field of Reeds.

I was intrigued and eager to test what I considered nothing more than an illusion—mechanical trickery in a theatrical mausoleum set in a field of stone props, serving much the same purpose amongst rustling grasses, for those blessed with more money than sense.

But what if it were not an illusion?

What if it worked?

I had turned eighty. Winter was upon me.

These were two very talented gentlemen, greatly respected in their own fields, and I admit it, I was flattered.

Besides, what had I to lose?

I should have known better.

I arranged to meet an hour before dusk as the park emptied before closing and met them in front of the tomb.

The door slid open, seemingly of its own accord, I imagine they had rigged a counterbalance, triggered in a way that was not apparent, simply to intensify the illusion.

In order to obtain an accurate reading, I was persuaded to enter the tomb and look directly into the mirror without any prior knowledge of what to expect, so no preconception would cloud my judgement.

Bonomi told me to concentrate as if I was in a seance and simply stare into the mirror, which I was more than happy to do.

The next moment I heard the door slide closed behind me and found myself alone, in the eerie darkness of the tomb.

“Don’t worry,” Bonomi shouted from outside. “Just keep concentrating.”

Then came a click... another click... a low hum... and finally a whirr. Cogs began turning. The glass globes began glowing and I saw myself in the mirror once more.

I stared into it concentrating hard, willing the device to work and deliver me to the Field of Reeds and meet Osirus.

For a heartbeat nothing happened.

Then my own reflection seemed to stir.

It stared back at me as though it had only just awakened, while a pale miasma began swirling from the mirror’s surround.

I could neither move nor look away. The vapours overpowered me as they filled my lungs, willing me through the mirror, enticing me with a glimpse of stars and galaxies beyond.

Then, with a sensation beyond description, I felt myself propelled as though leaving the Earth itself.

The next thing I knew it was night and I was standing alone outside the mausoleum.

I could see perfectly well, yet I could not feel the ground beneath my feet.

I could walk but experienced neither fatigue nor hunger.

Rain passed through me without discomfort.

Wind stirred the trees but I never felt it.

The strangest thing though I found I could pass straight back through the door and for almost two and a half centuries the Hannah Courtoy Mausoleum has been my home.

Now I have never been one to complain, but in 1998 no less than Reuters reported that author Howard Webster speculated that the Hannah Courtoy Mausoleum was in fact a time machine. There was also speculation it was a transportation port connected to a similar tomb in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.

Bonomi and Warners had apparently built it utilizing scientific secrets Bonomi deciphered from hieroglyphics.

Whatever the nonsense, my beautiful home suddenly attracted rather more attention, being considerably more handsome but less visited than a certain zebra crossing on Abbey Road.

If Warner and Bonomi have created a time machine I have no idea how to operate it and can absolutely assure you I cannot travel backwards or forwards through time.

What I can do is observe.

I have witnessed every passing year from my earliest memories to this. Empires have risen and fallen. Kings and prime ministers have come and gone.

I have watched London survive war, reconstruction and reinvention. I remember horse-drawn omnibuses and now watch driverless trains.

As technology improved, so too did my circumstances.

Radio was a revelation.

Granite contains quartz. In 1880, brothers Jacques and Pierre Curie discovered quartz has piezoelectric qualities, vibrating exactly 32,768 times per second.

So when broadcasting began, I found Warner's machine behaved rather like a crystal wireless radio. The Leyden jar became the capacitor, the coils its inductor, while the bronze door served as an aerial and the very walls of the mausoleum as the loudspeaker.

Making adjustments by turning the cogs, I found I could not only receive both BBC's Home and Light Service but also Radio Luxembourg, constantly broadcasting pop music.

Reception faded in and out, but anything that broke the silence was welcome.

Soon DJ Tony Prince became my daily companion, followed unfailingly by Horace Batchelor, patiently spelling out K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M and extolling his famous "Infra-Draw Method", which supposedly improved one's chances of winning the Football Pools, long before the National Lottery was ever imagined.

Whether it ever did, I cannot say, but after hearing the advertisement several thousand times I could certainly spell Keynsham.

Then came the iPhone, which transformed my existence entirely. One can charge them on certain London buses, plugging them in on any seat.

How did I come by one you ask?

Dear reader I have not had one, I have had several.

Brompton Cemetery is a bustling green space, operated by the Royal Parks. If you lose your phone here, doing whatever you are doing, they are the people to contact.

The internet is astonishing.

A lifetime spent collecting scandals suddenly became useful once again. YouTube is particularly informative, though I confess many modern politicians would struggle to survive a single issue of my original Scandal Gallery.

Which is precisely why I have decided to revive it, not as pamphlets but as YouTube videos.

After all, if one has spent well over two centuries observing human folly, one ought to make something of the experience.

Anyway, what happened to me shook Bonomi and Warner to the core, opening the tomb they found my body on the boards.

Returning the following day with shovels, they dug the grave deeper and dropped by body in, covering it with soil.

Obviously they could not risk the same thing happening to the sisters.

So they simply told them that the machine would convey each of them in turn to the Field of Reeds. Hannah was laid above me beneath the great stone slab, which replaced the boards, and in due course, Elizabeth and Mary Ann joined her.

Thus I acquired three remarkably quiet neighbours.

So if you visit, please don’t shout “Hello Darcy,” cup both hands and whisper it if you must.

First, I am unlikely to be in as the iphone consumes my waking hours, and thick granite blocks cellular reception.

Second, I have to live with my neighbours, who are trying to rest in peace. Instead, direct your hopes and prayers to the little orifice above the door and, in the rare event that I am home, I shall do my very best to pass them on.

If you look down, you will see evidence of the Great War to end all wars—an irony that transformed the cast-iron spearhead railings guarding so many tombs into weapons of war.

I usually slip out when the park opens and slip back around closing time. If you do come across me in London please say hello, my favourite haunts are Somerset House, Hertford House, the British Museum, V&A and Battersea Power Station, all open to the public for free.

The Royal Parks do such a wonderful job. Nothing compares to London, the jewel in England’s crown.

So now you know something about me. I hope you enjoy my writings, for they seek not merely to retell history's scandals, but to reveal the women who negotiated a man's world and, more often than history admits, quietly changed it.

Your obedient servant,

Darcy Blaze
Brompton Resident and free spirit