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Grave stones could be fixed
Aug 24 2008 by Phil Cullen, Sunday Sun
IN relation to the story you recently ran in the Sunday Sun on gravestones being knocked down by councils . . . can we please place the blame on the persons who started knocking down memorials in the first place.
The older types of memorials had no cement foundations. Instead they relied on clamps that were fixed from the kerbs into the base of the memorial.
This gave the memorial the stability that was needed when the memorial was fixed into the base by a joggle-slat, which had been used for hundreds of years for this purpose.
The council decided to do away with the kerbs so they could get the lawn-mowers up and down the sections, making the cemetery maintenance so much cheaper.
So when the authorities were told of the health and safety implication of grave stones falling over did they go to professionals such as stone masons?
No, they employed men from other jobs with no experience.
They simply shook the headstones, knocked them flat or buried them into the ground so only the names of the deceased were showing but covering the tributes below.
A qualified stone mason could easily have fixed any problem headstone — JOHN SUTTON (retired stone mason), Benwell, Newcastle
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