Ian McMillan: Fateful steps in a walk down memory lane

They looked alike, as though they could have been brothers or models for a South Yorkshire Novelty Melamine Cruet Set. The writer in me began to speculate on their story, as we shuffled along. Were they really brothers? Had they married sisters? Why, even in this enlightened age, were they doing the shopping? Had the sisters, in a double act of defiance, bought some vivid scarves and stilettos and left the lads to it as they went to pursue a life of hedonism in Ingoldmells?

Then one man spoke to the other from under his cap. "I see they're burying George," he said. Their walking slowed even more, to an appropriately funereal pace. "What did he die from?" the other man asked. "Fell off the top step with a bucket in his hand," the first man said. They nodded in unison. Gold. Pure, unalloyed 22-carat gold.

I was thinking about these two Toby jug-like figures the other day when my sister-in-law passed me an amazing document; it's an item called "A South Yorkshire Private Burial Record" from a long lost publication called The Yorkshire County magazine from sometime in the 19th century. I'll let the anonymous editor tell us more: "The recorder of these obituary notes was Elkanah Pigott of the Parish of Darfield, who lived before the time of daily papers."

What Elkanah did, in his methodical fashion, was to make a list of, as he put it, "my acquaintance that is dead" and in its way, it's as poetic and poignant as George tumbling from the top step clutching that bucket, because Elkanah gives us insights into how they shuffled off the mortal coil, and sometimes little glimpses of the lives they led.

I've made his spelling uniform: hope you don't mind. In the original it's a bit baroque, but even in Standard English the characters shine out. There's William Kemp, for instance; he "died suddenly in a lane leading from Great Houghton to Little Houghton January 26th 1795 supposed from the keen-ness of the frost that affected him to occasion his death, aged 45".

The first emotion I got from reading that was the shock of recognition: I know that lane! I've walked down it in January and, yes, it is cold and there can be a keen frost. Suddenly William comes alive in my imagination: he's in a coat that's not quite warm enough for the unfriendly weather. He's stormed out of the house for some reason. He's walking to see his mam in Little Houghton, but he never completes the journey as his walk becomes slower and more halting and hesitant. Around him the frost is getting keener.

What about poor, sad James Downend, who died at Billingley on June 4, 1803, aged 81. He was "a very weak man in his senses and a great idiot, and supported by the town of Billingley from house to house".

There's a story there: a tale of an early version of Care in the Community, with James accepted by the people of Billingley who gave him food and drink and shelter and perhaps mourned his passing at a ripe old age.

Robert Fosterd "died at Darfield a fortnight after his wife aged 70 years". Ah yes, the broken heart, the feeling that you can't go on. It still happens.

Godfrah Pigot's a bit of a case, I reckon. He "died of misfortune at Swinton Common by getting too much liquor coming from Rotherham and broke his neck and died immediately. He was a farmer and lived at Bolton on Dearne".

The questions bubble up: why did he go to Rotherham? Was he selling some livestock at a market? Did he get a good price and spend the money on a few jugs of beer? Did he take a sudden and fatal decision on the short cut over Swinton Common?

Actually, I reckon old Elkanah was a bit of a puritan at heart; a number of the deceased became so through drink. William Wade "shortened his day by drinking spirits"; Walter Reekey died "supposed to be full of liquor"; William Day's death was caused by "an excess of drinking spirits which shortened his life".

Reading these matter-of-fact accounts, I'm strangely moved. We often think of our long-lost and forgotten ancestors as very different from us.

We think that they spoke like characters on television costume dramas and that their lives were simple and cartoonish. These little hand-drawn obituaries, despite their brevity, make the people who walked the same lanes we walk into real human beings, a lot like us. And a lot like George, who lost his grip on the bucket handle as the top step wobbled.