Last month, a notice was posted in the Castle Gardens area of Tottenham Cemetery, announcing an upcoming project to level, re-dress, and seed the area. The notice informed those with loved ones buried at the site that numerous items, including fences, glass vases, balloons, and teddy bears are prohibited, with the sole exception of flowers placed by the headstone. Any non-compliant items will be removed, and a single, small ornament will be permitted per grave.
Local bereaved parents Joe, Whitney and Charlie, whose children are buried in this part of the cemetery, have set up a petition to oppose the move, since they have been unable to get a response from cemetery management to discuss the handling of this extremely sensitive issue.
Find out more here, along with a statement from The Friends of Tottenham Cemetery:
Grieving parents ‘outraged’ after being told to remove items from children’s graves
Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-our-loved-ones-graves-in-tottenham-and-enfield
I wholeheartedly support this petition. Dignity Funerals’ behaviour is as much ridiculous as anything. Certainly the last thing it is showing is any dignity for the dead and their families. Their decision is boring, mechanistic, shows no thought for circumstances or people. In other words, is behaving so very much like the massive grasping capitalist private equity beast that it is. To think Haringey and Enfield Councils awarded this beast a 50-year contract to “maintain the cemeteries”. I suspect they want the graves cleared so they can speedily do a quick run through the cemetery witha large mechanical cutter for the broad sweep. Clearly keen to keep as much of the £700k they get each year to maintain the cemeteries. The two Councils have made a serious error with this contract. Why were we not informed, consulted? Why haven’t voluntary organisations been involved? The best thing we could do with Dignity Funerals is bury it!