During the heat of last summer I read a novel by Audrey Niffenegger entitled 'Her Fearful Symmetry,' and got hooked on the idea of visiting Highgate Cemetery on my next visit to Britain.

Unfortunately, that visit coincided with the worst British winter since 1963 but so intrigued was I by Niffenegger's descriptions of Highgate Cemetery and many of the people who lay within its boundaries, I bundled up in a bargain basement ski jacket and headed off in minus whatever it was that day, to see for myself.

"Curiosity killed the cat" was a term I often heard as a very inquisitive kid many moons ago.  This time around my curiosity about Highgate Cemetery almost put me on the wrong side of the frozen ground.  After an hour of constantly banging my feet on the paths, jumping up and down, blowing on my fingers to warm them up enough to press the button on my camera – I was wearing gloves by the way but to little avail – I gave in, trudged back to the car but with a promise to return again … in the summer.

Was it worth the effort to schlep from Putney to Highgate?  You bet it was.

Highgate Cemetery opened in 1839 and 15 years later it was necessary to take over more land on the other side of Swains Lane creating Highgate Cemetery East, the latter still in use in present times.  Unfortunately for me, Highgate West was closed the day I came to pay respects to the many famous personalities mentioned in Niffenegger's novel.  Not to worry though, the east side (where Karl Marx is buried) was open – for the charge of six pounds that is – and proved to be absolutely fascinating.  West Side Story will have to wait for another time.

Near the entrance are a number of rather stylish family vaults and then hundreds of graves lining either side of wide avenues, well worn paths in the shadows of very tall trees.  Many of the graves are in a state of disrepair and here and there slabs moved aside.  Together with the freezing temperatures the half open graves led to an even more eerie atmosphere.

I come across the author George Eliot (the name used by Mary Ann Evans and remembered plodding my way through her pro-Zionist book Daniel Deronda in my teens, long before I had any notions about making aliyah.

I was surprised at the number of Jews and Muslims buried in Highgate, among them Ernestine Louise Rose, the daughter of a Polish rabbi who ran away to Western Europe at the age of 16 after refusing to enter in to an arranged marriage.  A confirmed atheist and feminist, she became a rebel with many a cause playing a major role in the UK and American feminist movements.

Standing on a high pedestal above the grave of Karl Marx, seemingly keeping an eye on all that moves – or doesn't - around him, is an enormous, imposing bust of the man himself.   Marx was born in Germany to Jewish parents.  When Karl was 6 years-old however, Herschel and Henrietta Marx converted to Christianity to avoid anti-Semitism and Herschel, a lawyer, changed his name to Heinrich.

Three students stand alongside the memorial snapping photos of each other in various poses and grinning into the lens, which reflects the stern face of the radical author of Das Kapital who died without a penny to his name but whose name is deeply etched in history.

A few yards across the path from Marx’s final resting place, a trio of headstones catches my eye.

'Saad Saadi Ali, an Iraqi Communist leader and campaigner for democracy and socialism 1945 – 1987' says the inscription on the first.  Alongside Ali, is Dr. Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo (1909-1985), Chair of the South African Communist Party who 'dedicated his life to the cause of national liberation, socialism and world peace' reads that inscription.

Dr. Dadoo, a Muslim Indian born in South Africa, studied medicine in Edinburgh and returned to South Africa in 1936.  He fiercely campaigned against racism and apartheid, joined the Communist Party and was constantly harassed and sent to prison a number of times.  Eventually having to leave his country of birth, Dr. Dadoo moved to London in 1960 where he continued his political activities until his death in the early eighties.

On the third grave the inscription reads 'In Memory of a Dear Comrade DAVID COHEN (1934-1988).'  David Daoud Cohen, an Iraqi born Arabic scholar and former member of the Iraqi Communist Party (and apparently the Israeli Communist Party at some point) also has an inscription in ornamental Arabic script on the cover of a book etched under his name on the gravestone.  Curiously, the book is one that would open from left to right and not right to left as one would expect.

Another 'comrade' in this part of Highgate Cemetery is Claudia Vera Jones who was born in 1915 and died in 1964.  Born in Trinidad, Jones was a communist, black activist and journalist.  She moved to New York in the early 1920s but during the McCarthy period was arrested a number of times and eventually deported to London where she continued her political activities.

Author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Noel Adams (1952-2001) is also buried in the East Cemetery as is well known philosopher and sociologist of the Victorian era Herbert Spencer.  The latter coined the oft used phrase "survival of the fittest" which I found most fitting indeed standing there seriously shivering, snowflakes beginning to fall and in absolute wonderment at all these incredibly diverse and hugely interesting people buried in Highgate.