This is the story of Jacob Grist
asleep beneath St.Wilfrid’s turf
who, by the town, was sorely missed
when laid below that holy earth.
 
A member of the Local Board,
and later of the UDC,
when Jacob went to meet his Lord
the loss was felt enormously.
 
Jacob’s widow had to leave
the local farm that he had leased,
and moved back into town to grieve
her dear, late husband now deceased.
 
Jacob kept ‘The Volunteer’
but died when only sixty-eight.
His customers all shed a tear
when Jacob knocked on Heaven’s gate.
 
Now lying too, not very far
and also long reduced to bones,
the young innkeeper of ‘The Star’
the much-lamented Joshua Jones.
 
‘The Star’ stood at the other end
of the village street to Jacob Grist’s
with St.Wilfrid’s churchyard in between
where both would go for Eucharist.
 
I wonder, as they plied their trade
these long forgotten licenced friends,
if they once thought they’d end up laid
so close when both had reached their ends?