My friends Terry and Liz have started a thing called [OpenBenches](https://openbenches.org) which is an open data repository for memorial benches.  You know the sort of thing, a bench with a small plaque that says "Daisy Titwrangler 1922-1979 who loved to feed the birds from here" - well now there's a place to record them, take photographs of them and store potentially useful metadata about them.

When we were walking to the train station yesterday, Laura popped into the newsagent in Frinton to get some water and I was left lingering outside.  I realised I had the chance to add to the repository.  It's super easy on your phone, you just browse to openbenches.org and there's a button for adding a new bench.  You take a geo-located picture and add your transcription of the bench's inscription and there you go.

[Here's "my" first bench.](https://openbenches.org/bench/1031)

![IMAG0061.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmU1UMnF3eCiSA5pGsd6KGqY8uCzHNEbZT7p4SNXbn39wq/IMAG0061.jpg)

It's dedicated to Dr Charles Clark who was Coroner for Essex for nearly thirty years.  His [obituary in the British Medical Journal](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2551443/pdf/bmj00609-0050.pdf)  states the he "was believed to be the only person to have qualified as a pharmacist, doctor, and barrister in the past 50 years."  

And now he's famous for his bench.