cemetary, council and removal of personal obejcts from grave.

coolcait

meritaten wrote: »

I just waded through the councils own charter on burials and maintenance of cemeteries.

Could you provide the link, please?

Edited to add:

If you provide the full link, there might be something in there which those of us who are looking for 'facts' rather than 'emotions' can use to point out ways to make an effective complaint.

Although my personal tastes run towards uniformity, and a simple headstone with integrated flower vase; and although I am more than a little bit irked by the emotive ranting, and associated rudeness towards those who have suggested that facts rather than emotions lead to an effective complaint; I do think that those affected by this decision could probably create an effective, fact-based, legislation-driven complaint.

If they stopped ranting for long enough to look for it.

This post is an example of how facts can triumph over emotions. If I were to go with my emotions on this one, then I would:

- look at the rants and "bye bye" posts on this thread, and think - good luck with writing a complaint which will be taken seriously. Or indeed, be intelligible. Then walk away

- completely agree with the Council's approach to teddies, tiaras and tawdry, tacky tat on graves

- observe that one windchime in a gentle breeze can be soothing (for a short while). Several dozen windchimes, in a country where gentle breezes are far less common than strong winds, is a recipe for an irritating and constant cacophony.

- pick up my pen and write a letter to Caerphilly Council, on behalf of the less vocal minority/majority who prefer peace and simplicity in a cemetery, and congratulate them on their brave decision.

However, since I am going with the facts, I think that the Council (although they have taken the right decision) have implemented it in all the wrong ways. And I can see a fact-based complaint in all of that. If you share the link, then that might add to the fact-based approach.

Janepig

[QUOTE=lostinrates;50974157]I actuallythink its worth marking accident hot spots, In pats of france they used to be marked with black silhouettes of people...representing who had died there...so shapes of men, women or children, i have no idea how widespread this was, r indeed if it still happens. Very chilling.

I am afraid otherwise a fall into the nothing other than plants Or flowers. I do not mind lack of uniformity but find some stones not to my taste and feel sad when money has been spent where it could obviously be used better for living family. My personal opinion only. The council not abiding by their own guidelines and with nonotice, despite my preference for tjeir plan, is imo appalling.[/QUOTE]

They are marked on Rhodes in Greece too. I was puzzled as to what the boxes on legs that we saw on many bends in the road were. They had a window in the front with oil, a candle and an picture of Jesus or Mary. We used to see them from the bus as we were travelling and many of the locals would cross themselves as we passed them. I thought they were reminders for people to go to church or something (in my naiivety - sp, sorry). On our last day there I mentioned it to someone who told me that they actually mark the spot where someone has been killed in a road accident (very prevalent on Rhodes it would seem), and I then found them quite chilling.

Some of the particularly bad roads around here have got signs up stating how many accidents there've been in the last few years. I think maybe something more chilling would work better. Certainly better than weeds in a bit of cellophane.

Jx

lostinrates

Janepig wrote: »

They are marked on Rhodes in Greece too. I was puzzled as to what the boxes on legs that we saw on many bends in the road were. They had a window in the front with oil, a candle and an picture of Jesus or Mary. We used to see them from the bus as we were travelling and many of the locals would cross themselves as we passed them. I thought they were reminders for people to go to church or something (in my naiivety - sp, sorry). On our last day there I mentioned it to someone who told me that they actually mark the spot where someone has been killed in a road accident (very prevalent on Rhodes it would seem), and I then found them quite chilling.

Some of the particularly bad roads around here have got signs up stating how many accidents there've been in the last few years. I think maybe something more chilling would work better. Certainly better than weeds in a bit of cellophane.

Jx

Yes, agree. The old flowers look very unloved imo, like rubbish aftter a dew days. Nar here there is a teddy tied to a lamppost on the road side spot, and on the second time i drove by it i noticed it had got a bit grubbier, now its original colour isn't really visable and its just a dirty thing. I felt sad, because while it means somethiong to the person who put it there i wondered if it were loved thing how its owner would have felt about it being tied to the spot and then abandoned to be filthy.

However, if it were my family the chilling reminder of death would make me feel something was being done to stop it happening again. Dh was very lucky to walk away from a rollover last winter, about this time. We have since learned a handful of people have died or been seriously injured on that spot. Dh drives like a vicar...slow, steady and controlled, but thisis a frak few metres that due to orientation doesn't get any sun so harbours black ice which combined with a dodgy road camber was very dangerous (its being altered this year). Something not messy and distracting but warning and chilling might have warned him, and if not safe old him then the dozens of boy racers who skidded by while we and the police stood there for over an hour waiting for the car to be moved.


There is a boack joke about those flowers.....which i will no trepeat here but i think it is apt.

System

3 or 4 times a year i visit my daughters plot. Its in the childrens section of the crematorium. During the summer the section is filled with brightly coloured objects/toys/flowers obviously laid down with love by the family of the deceased child.

Personally, i get so upset each time i go to the plot and never lay things on her plot. I just go, tell her that i still love and miss her and clear away any weeds/branches as i am telling her these things. Not that i am being mean but i think after a few weeks these toys/flowers look tired and shabby and i know i would have to go back in a few weeks to remove the ageing toys, dead flowers which would upset me once more.

Just to the side of the childrens section is a big old oak tree and people tie wind chimes to the big old lower branches but a letter was sent to all families warning they would be taken down for health and safety reasons.

carefullycautious

Apologies if my answer upset you . I must admit I did not realise that the council had just turned up and thrown away/ dug up etc.

Tactless really you should have been consulted and asked to remove anything the council thought was over and above what should be there.

Again a very emotive subject which should never have been allowed in the first place.

londonsurrey

OP, I sympathise, and if you really want to shame them, write to your MP and the papers about it.

On a pragmatic level, part of the problem is that plots don't tend to be sold as freeholds, i.e. they don't actually sell the plot of land. They sell the right to be buried. New graves plots in my borough can hold up to four coffins. After about 50 years(time lengths vary with place and legislation and economic pressures), you may be offered the chance to repurchase (actually re-lease) the plot.

I've forgotten the actual depths, but let's say the coffins are buried at 18, 14, 10 and 6 feet deep. If someone is buried at 18 feet, after a few decades, when the "lease" is up, the council can bury someone else in the 14 foot space. So if you're planning on a "family" plot, the trick is to fully use up all the spaces, and even if the spaces are not used up, to bury the "last of the line" at the 6 foot depth, thus not leaving a usable space that the council can use for a stranger, if you're that way inclined.

gregg1

steph7163 wrote: »

Some of us never got the chance to buy/give lots of nice stuff and this is all we can do to acknowledge our loved one - i hope that you never suffer this horrendous and life changing misfortune as i would not wish it on my worst enemy but for those who have i am sorry - sorry that your council will not leave you to grieve in peace and in your own way be it for a child or adult - sorry also that you are suffering as i myself knows only to well
also to add the comfort a cold damp wet dirty teddy brings is immense and please be grateful if you never understand this
stephxxx

I really do sympathise with what you say but you have to understand that it is only fair to also consider the wishes of people who do not want the place their loved ones are buried to end up like a huge open air toy store. It really does have to be a case of compromise. There have to be boundaries, even in a graveyard.

I also speak from experience. When I visit my father's grave I really just want (and need) a period of quiet reflection. That is being increasingly denied to me due to the cacophony of a hundred windchimes which adourn surrounding graves. (Also, on one occasion recently, I was visiting the Garden of Rememberance where my mother was cremated and some idiot's phone went off and he proceeded to hold a very loud conversation with whoever had phoned him, although he did eventually turn it off after I made my feelings known to him!).

Maybe instead of spending all that money on toys and other stuff which just ends up looking dirty and tatty why not give the money to a deserving charity in the name of the deceased person where it can do some good and perhaps put a more discreet and tasteful memorial on the grave. Maybe flowers in a colour they loved or something like that. Although I would like to add again that I do think in the case of the OP, the council handled the situation pretty poorly.

londonsurrey

gregg1 wrote: »

I really do sympathise with what you say but you have to understand that it is only fair to also consider the wishes of people who do not want the place their loved ones are buried to end up like a huge open air toy store. It really does have to be a case of compromise. There have to be boundaries, even in a graveyard.

I know someone who as part of his job, inspects cemetaries. We were most startled to find a couple of graves with snowmen on them after the last snowfall! Because they were carefullly sited squarely within plots, with lots of free open space nearby, we could only surmise that someone was remembering happier moments with the departed.

What was sad was to find the snowmen pushed over in the following days.

londonsurrey

gregg1 wrote: »

I really do sympathise with what you say but you have to understand that it is only fair to also consider the wishes of people who do not want the place their loved ones are buried to end up like a huge open air toy store. It really does have to be a case of compromise. There have to be boundaries, even in a graveyard.

I also speak from experience. When I visit my father's grave I really just want (and need) a period of quiet reflection. That is being increasingly denied to me due to the cacophony of a hundred windchimes which adourn surrounding graves.

Maybe instead of spending all that money on toys and other stuff which just ends up looking dirty and tatty why not give the money to a deserving charity in the name of the deceased person where it can do some good and perhaps put a more discreet and tasteful memorial on the grave. Maybe flowers in a colour they loved or something like that. Although I would like to add again that I do think in the case of the OP, the council handled the situation pretty poorly.

I see where you're coming from, being very much of a minimalist bent myself. However, in one of the borough's graveyards is a plot that is absolutely choc full of lights, flowers, toys, etc. It really is quite startling to behold.

The plot holds a man who commited suicide. Also his 20-something daughter who committed suicide. And her two teenage sisters who shortly after also committed suicide. I simply find it difficult, knowing the circumstances, to critique the extraordinary display of objects placed there by the mother and her youngest daughter.

Norma_Desmond

I've always thought of, and respected cemeteries as places of peace and quiet contemplation and do find it jarring to see graves covered in brightly coloured plastic tat - be it flowers or windchimes or toys.

A standard gravestone with flower urn surely can't 'offend' anyone's sensibilities, but turning a grave into a personal shrine that resembles a market stall certainly can.

My Dad passed away last October and the cemetery he's buried in is very carefully managed by the local council who won't allow anything but traditional urns on the graves - and the place is peaceful and tasteful to all who visit.