When a loved one dies, families and friends often struggle to understand the grief they are experiencing. Many try to find comfort at a tough time by visiting the departed in the chapel of rest, attending the funeral, or visiting the graves at cemeteries, leaving flowers and items such as teddy bears. However, in Cumbria a local Council has given mourners already experiencing loss, grief, and despair more needless stress, at a time when they may be experiencing extreme mental and physical anguish anyway.
The council sent what they term “a gentle reminder” to people living in the area advising grieving mourners to take what a representative from the council described as ‘non-natural items’ off any graves located at Carlisle Cemetery. The definition of ‘non-natural items’ seems to be vague. However, Cumberland Council attempted to fill in the gaps by clarifying that this definItion specifically referred to ‘decorations, lights, and vases’, and that items falling under these categories are not permitted to be left on a grave by mourners.
Why is the council doing this?
Many reading this article will think the actions taken by Cumberland Council are heartless, barbaric, and cruel to those experiencing grief, and having lost loved ones. The person making the statement on behalf of the council claimed they have a reason to take this decision because putting items on graves and memorials contravenes ‘regulations’. The council does not seem to have stated which regulations have been violated.
The council claimed it is acting in a perceptively draconian way in not permitting members of the public to place the above items on graves because it seeks to ‘preserve the natural beauty of Carlisle Cemetery’s Woodland burial area’. The council elaborated by warning members of the public who may be tempted to act in such an ‘offensive way’ by placing a teddy bear on a child’s grave not to leave ‘vases, lights, and decorations on the graves’.
The council then advised members of the public who had dared to place one of the prohibited items on the graves to ‘kindly remove them to comply with the regulations’. Interestingly no time limit was provided for the mourners to take memorials, keepsakes, and teddy bears off the graves. People mourning their loved ones were given a vague open-ended timescale of ‘soon’ to comply.
Why might the council have taken this step?
However, suppose we see it from the Local Authority’s perspective and the vantage point of those responsible for maintaining the cemetery. Whilst at first the grave may look fine, the council may claim that in time animals or children may walk off with the keepsakes, spreading them out over a large area or causing further distress to mourners because of missing items. Secondly, from an environmental viewpoint, the local authority may claim that depending on the particular object it can take a long time for items such as vases and teddy bears to decompose. Thirdly, from a visual perspective, the council may claim these items look unsightly after being left on a grave for a lengthy period of time.
Can the council do this?
In 2016 David Pocklington published an article entitled ‘Churchyard Regulations – the practicalities of enforcement – a review of the issues associated with the implementation of Churchyard Regulations’ on the Law and Religion UK website, which stated that ‘whilst the laws around the Churchyard Regulations are not complicated, he observed that the enforcement of the regulations where grieving mourners put ‘unauthorised items on or around the grave’ of loved-ones, often presents issues of what he described as a ‘sensitive nature’.
David Pocklington observes that the Church of England is ‘diocese-based’ and Parochial Church Councils (a.k.a PCCs) have the choice of enacting ‘their own policies’, subject to being in alignment with ‘diocesan Regulations’. The Guidance note from the Church of England issued in 2016 advises that ‘additional items such as photographs, toys, and windmills may not be permitted. However, as a caveat, it states something of a get-out clause when it states ‘depending on the terms of the Regulations’.
What is permitted?
When you read the Oxford regulations mourners are permitted to place up to ‘3 toys or’, what it describes as ‘similar objects’ to be ‘left at a place of burial or interment of cremated remains for 12 months from the date of burial or interment’. However, this seems to be where the kindness, if it ever started, ends, because mourners will need to get consent from the ‘minister’ to put items on a grave for one year. The regulations clarify that such items ‘must be removed at the end of that period’. The Oxford regulations state that local mourners in the Cumberland Council area may be out of luck because after the time for permission elapses the ‘minister, or a person acting on his or her behalf, has the choice of taking the items off the grave as they are not permitted to be there’.
It will be interesting to see how this case pans out. However, with the regulations in place unlikely to be repealed any time soon and the strength the Church has, the families mourning the loss of their loved ones may be on a sticky wicket as they have been fighting a battle they sadly cannot win.
