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CARING FOR WAR GRAVES: LOCAL COMMUNITY MOBILISED
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Hard working volunteers at one of the gravesides.
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Local youth organisations and volunteers at a town in southern England joined forces in June to clean up one hundred and ten British, Canadian, Polish and Czech war graves in the town. Helped by his Croatian wife Mirela, CFIVA Secretary Daniel Kington spent many weeks surveying the two local cemeteries and was surprised to find so many graves fallen into disrepair. He said: "Although persons who died in the World Wars have the right to a memorial headstone from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, many families chose to have their loved ones buried privately, and now nobody is alive to maintain them." The graves include those of a nine-month old baby killed by a V1 flying bomb and a Polish fighter pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain. Units of Army Cadets and the local branch of the Royal British Legion gave their enthusiastic help, with all the Second World War graves cleaned and plans to complete the rest shortly. A fortnight later, Kington organised a touching memorial service coinciding with Britain's commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, attended by Cadets, the Legion standard and many townspeople. Kington also rediscovered the town's first memorial to World War One in the corner of the larger municipal cemetery, dirty and all but abandoned. The project was widely covered by the local media and received the praise and support of member of Parliament Nicholas Soames MP, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.
Kington, in addition to his work for CFIVA, gives the remainder of his spare time as a volunteer welfare caseworker for the Royal British Legion, helping to alleviate poverty and suffering amongst the war veteran community in that country.
CFIVA
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