Woman ‘heartbroken again’ by what she saw at loved one’s grave

Families who only recently found where their loved ones were buried have been left shocked and horrified after Wirral Council laid a carpet of wild flowers and ‘weeds’ over several graves. The families said it caused them significant distress.

Earlier this year, Wirral Council laid turf over several graves at Landican Cemetery. It was believed that the wildflowers that would grow would be a similar symbol of their loss, as poppies are on war graves. However, the move proved unpopular with families who told the ECHO that tributes to loved ones had been lost in all the growth and they feared their relatives’ graves could be next. A council spokesman said the turf would now be removed.

Many of the affected families were only able to locate their relatives recently, after decades of not knowing their whereabouts because they were stillborn. The work of activists like Gina Jacobs, as well as the efforts of hard-working cemetery staff, has resulted in dozens of children being located in old burial records dating back more than 50 years.

Before the 1980s, it was understood to be common practice in Britain that when a woman had a miscarriage or stillbirth, hospital staff quickly took the baby away. Families were sometimes told that if they had another baby soon and didn’t see it, they would pass.

In recent months, families have discovered that growth around the new memorial has grown out of control, while new wildflowers have taken over some of the graves. Maria Kane’s parents, Kathleen and Harry Miller, gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1964, whom they named Claire.

Shortly after Kathleen’s death in 1999, the family managed to find the grave and Maria said her father Harry looked after it until he died at Christmas last year. While the grave is currently unaffected by the new turf, Maria was concerned that it would spread.

She said: “It’s awful, very sad and now it’s basically covering the graves. To be honest with you, it is very cruel. My father would be very angry. When we used to visit Claire’s grave, it was the only recognized grave on that block.

Gaynor Warrington found the grave of her twin brothers in November 2023, 15 years after her mother Valerie died. After seeing a photo of the graves on Facebook, she headed to Landican to see for herself, adding: “I couldn’t believe it. It was like a garbage dump. It was like a pile of rubbish and I just stared in disbelief.”

She said: ‘It’s absolutely disgusting what they’ve done’, adding: ‘I felt heartbroken again. When I found the babies, I looked up at the sky and said “I found their mother.”

The plants meant she could no longer read the tributes she had placed on the graves and had to postpone plans for a larger memorial to her siblings. She said: “It broke my heart. It was bad enough that all these years mom and dad didn’t know where I was.”

She told the ECHO: “There were. They were little people. They were born and as far as I can see they covered them up like they were garbage.”

Lesley Nugen, who looks after her brother’s grave alongside her sisters, said: “It’s heartbreaking because I looked after the grave. Landican doesn’t seem to care. It looks terrible. It upset the family. It covers one side of the grave, the cords are right on the edge of the grave, and it penetrates with the plants there.”

She added: “We try to keep it tidy but it’s just a mess. We finally got somewhere to feel close to him and now we feel like he’s been taken away.”

Not only the graves were affected. Diana Williams took her daughter down to visit the memorial set up for stillborn babies earlier this year and remembers her daughter saying “Oh my God, what is that?” when they saw the state in which it was left. She said: “I know the ground staff have a tough job on their hands. I understand all this. For this reason, why not put some rocks on it and it won’t need the same maintenance. It’s very sad because of the effort they put in and it turned out like this.”

She added: “There is re-wilding and then there are graves where the re-wilding just becomes weeds. It’s horrible to think they’d put my child under a bed of weeds, but now it seems they’re moving in the right direction.”

Gina Jacobs, whose son Robert’s grave was left untouched, said: “I really think this was a plan that went very, very wrong. I can’t see for one minute how, when they tried to take this awful thing down, they. he would have realized how much suffering that caused.”

She said: “We were never allowed to push those babies to the park, never take them to school or do anything in life, but that’s all we can do for them, take care of their places. There is nothing else we can do. For me, I take care of my baby and all the other babies.”

A Wirral Council spokesman said: “Following consultation with families whose children were buried at Landican and in preparation for last year’s memorial and community service for the babies, we have purchased specialist wildflower turf. It was placed on a small number of children’s graves late last year. in the spring, the goal being that the unmarked graves will then stand out and, similar to the poppy for the war graves, be a symbol of their loss.

“Any objects that were found on the grave were sensitively moved while the sod was laid and then placed back at the head of the graves. We are sorry that this has caused upset to the families as this was not our intention and we will arrange for the wildflower lawn to be removed and placed in an area away from any graves and the traditional grass lawn laid back on the graves.”