Respect

In September in Great Britain they have Heritage Days where different localities open up to the public historic sights for them to view and learn the history of the site.

Last Sunday Mike and I took a tour of Hyde Park Cemetery in Dorcaster.  In 1853 Great Britain was faced with a problem.  Parish churches found themselves running out of space to bury their parishioners .  As a result, communities were given permission to establish non denominational cemeteries.  Hyde Park was one of the first of such cemeteries to be established outside of London. Although it is almost full and only a few burials are performed each year, it was quite busy up until the 1970's when an additional non denominational  cemetery was created for the community.

For a cemetery that was quite active until less than 40 year ago, and is still somewhat active even now, Hyde Park Cemetery is in a horrible state of disrepair.  And, I realize that some of the graves are over a hundred years old and time and the elements will take their toll.  However, not the type of toll that we witnessed all over the cemetery.

Monument after monument had been knocked off its base and often broken into pieces on the ground.  Both the older monuments and the newer seemed to have been destroyed without any thought as to their age or to the lack of respect being shown to the deceased.  Weeds were everywhere.  Grass needed cut. The paved pathways were crumbled.

It was a sad sight to behold.  If anyone ever wanted a project to tackle, rehabilitating that cemetery and its grave would be a worthwhile one.  Let us hope someone takes it on.