Postcode of Death

I have always had a strange fascination with maps and can spend stupid amounts of time studying them. I live in London and I love my London Street Atlas. The maps show the sheer scale of the city but also the small details that make life interesting.

Often it is these small details that send my thoughts off on random topics.

Today, it was postcode boundaries that caught my attention and led me to think about religious divisions.

For anyone outside the UK a postcode is an alpha numeric sequence that is used by the postal service to divide up a city into small sections and subsections to make delivering letters easier. For example, the postcode of 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister's Official Residence) is SW1A 2AA. In London the first letter or letters refer to compass points, so SW1 is South West 1.

It struck me that the postcode boundaries appeared to be laid out to go around cemeteries not through them. The W3 postcode has a little projection to go around the top of North Acton cemetery. Why does this matter? Do the occupants receive much post? I would love to see a someone attempt to deliver a registered letter requiring a signature to someone's Auntie Mabel (1901-1997) in plot 32.

However, looking more closely I began to notice that divisions in life seemed to be reflected even in death. The postcode boundary between W10 and NW10 appears to split the main part of Kensal Green Cemetery from St Mary's RC Cemetery right next to it. A similar divide along religious grounds can be found between E7, West Ham Cemetery and E15, the Jewish Cemetery.

Is there some rule that dead people of different religions or denominations can't share the same postcode?

We live in a society where people are again being defined and judged by their religious beliefs. From those who think all religion is a load of [insert appropriately offensive substance of your choice] to those who think people who don't share their particular religious beliefs are a load of [insert appropriately offensive substance of your choice] and every shade in between. I have nothing against religion per se (for the record I am a lapsed Christian and my partner is a Muslim) but I find it deeply worrying when it becomes the basis for political decisions, choosing your friends or even deciding where you live. I can see the value of religion as a guide to the individual on how to live but when it becomes an excuse to label or judge others, claim moral superiority or to shun sections of society that don't think the same way then any worth religion has is debased. It is not religion that bothers me but the misuse of religion. Particularly where individuals or groups attempt to make the whole of society squeeze into their particular belief system, because they believe it and so it must be right. Can you have belief without dogmatism? I really don't know.