RAIL crashes, shipwrecks, mine roof falls and a skating accident all featured in a talk on the history which can he told from cemetery headstones in South Cumbria.

Rod White has made a study of these “Stories Behind the Stones” and was the guest speaker at Ulverston Methodist Church for the North Lonsdale Society.

Stories behind the stones at Barrow cemetery included the reason for a replica of the Longshore lighthouse – found off the North East coast.

This marks the grave of James Gall who died in 1888 and was believed to have been the last survivor from the shipwreck of the SS Forfarshire on September 7 in 1838.

This incident was made famous by the heroism of Grace Darling and her lighthouse keeper father who rescued some of the survivors in a rowing boat.

Gall, who lived in Egerton Buildings, Barrow Island, was among others who reached safety in a lifeboat from the stricken ship.

Another distinctive Barrow headstone features an image of a trumpet and recalls the life of Salvation Army bandsman Christopher Wilson, who died on August 8 in 1889.

At Ulverston cemetery he showed the monument to Francis John Crossfield, of Todbusk, Ulverston, who died in November 1914.

His timber business was in Barrow, Fleetwood, Preston and Manchester and he left an estate worth £50,901.

Mr White also described the two graves he had found so far at Ulverston from a shipping accident in Jun 1918 which killed 17 – Fenton Pickthall Stephenson and Joseph Thomas Rayment.

The most unusual monument at Ulverston cemetery is to a man who is buried at Edinburgh.

Dr Thomas Wilson died in 1897 and is remembered by a stone lighthouse which was once lit by gas.

It celebrates the happy times he spent each year as a visitor to Conishead Priory.

At St Peter’s churchyard, Ireleth, he described the two accidents which claimed the lives of a father and son.

Joseph Gardner died in a skating accident in November 1915 and his father John, the ex-landlord of the Black Bull at Dalton, was crushed by a roof fall at Anty Cross mine, Dalton, on March 6 in 1921.

A family headstone at the churchyard of St Peter’s, Ireleth, records the death in captivity of Second World War German prisoner Sgt Dennis Johnson.

He was a glider pilot and became a prisoner of war after the raid on Arnhem. He died, aged 25, on March 30 in 1945.

At Dalton cemetery he showed the tomb of Francis Craven, who died as a result of an IRA ambush while serving in an armed auxiliary police force in Ireland on February 2 in 1921.

Also shown were the headstones of three Furness gold miners – all killed in a train crash at Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset, on November 11 in 1890.