Bleak, hard, lonely place...

Forgotten in the mists of time.

Lying under mossy mounds, where no one remembers them.

A return to the cholera cemetery in Tredegar today proved to be one of the better visits I have made there.  The day was wet and misty when I arrived and bitterly cold, like a January day.  The temperature was 4 degrees lower than when I left Newport, and as I pulled up on the moors I wondered at the wisdom of trudging across to the burial ground.  But I had made a promise to a friend that I would take her, and she had refused the opportunity to cancel our trip, so I felt honour bound to try.  The paths were wet, and very muddy which meant that they were slippery. When we reached the cemetery, the mist and rain just added to the evocative feel of the place and outlined more clearly to me than previous visits, the banishment of these poor people, cast out from society for no other reason than they were ill.  Cholera is still a dreaded disease today, back then it was terrifying and the non-infected did not know what to do with the dead for fear of them still being contagious.  I understand all that, but such an example of man's inhumanity to man tugs at the heart strings.  Thank God we know now that this treatment of the sick and the dead was all metered out due to ignorance.