I HAVE a grave matter to talk about. It follows a recent family history discovery about my grandfather, Joseph Weeks.

He suffered an accident in Swindon Railway Works in the summer of 1925, which also happened to be when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother.

Joseph was a boilermaker in AV?Shop, and when he was there on June 17, 1925, one of his mates was swinging a sledgehammer when the head came off, and it hit my grandfather in the forehead, causing lacerations.

He must have had the wound dressed at the GWR Medical Fund hospital in the Railway Village, but was not admitted, and that should have been the end of it.

But four days later the wound turned septic, and after 19 days of desperately fighting the infection at home, he was eventually admitted to hospital, where he spent the next six weeks, during which time my mother was born.

I recently discovered papers relating to his case, which showed that he was fighting two particularly nasty types of bacteria, and the medical site I found on Google said this type of infection “was almost universally fatal before the introduction of antibiotics”.

And this was three years before the discovery of penicillin.

Against all the odds, though, he somehow survived, and lived for another 30 years. His younger brother, John Weeks, was not so lucky.

Great Uncle John died, later the same year, of peritonitis, an often deadly infection that was a common complication of appendicitis. He was just 30.

So the other afternoon I went in search of his grave at Radnor Street Cemetery, which turns out to be plot E7732 and — like the majority of graves in the cemetery — is unmarked. It is sad that nobody thought to, or could afford to, pay for a memorial of any kind, but at least John lies with both his father and his mother (my great-grandparents).

Many others in the cemetery share their final resting place with random, unrelated people, but plot E7732 was purchased by my great-grandfather in 1909. That means I have the right to be buried there if I choose, even though the cemetery is otherwise closed to new burials.

I know it is important to some people what happens to them after their death, which I fully respect, but I have never cared and haven’t really given it much thought — until now.

Scientists tell us the magnetic centre of the earth is the North Pole, but I?believe it is Radnor Street, because it has a spooky tendency to keep cropping up in my life.

My grandfather was living at 88 Radnor Street when he had his collision with the sledgehammer, and my mother was born in the house. Almost opposite is number nine, the first house I ever rented, and this was at a time when my future wife, whom I was yet to meet, was a frequent visitor to her brother’s house at number four.

Number 36 is the first house I owned, and it was also my first marital home. It stands opposite the cemetery gates, through which I now often pass, since I organise various local history events that are held there.

So I am now thinking I might as well stop resisting the invisible force that is drawing me there, and agree that one day I will be carried to the cemetery, feet first.

But enough of this melancholy, because Radnor Street is also the source of one of my favourite jokes, which cannot be repeated too often.

Did you know that nobody living in Swindon is allowed to be buried in Radnor Street Cemetery?

Why?

Because you have to be dead first.