Signs going up at 3,000 UK sites
25 July 2012
Most people know about the war cemeteries abroad - in France and
Belgium, in the desert and in the far east.
Less widely known are the 300,000 commemorations here at
home - in every corner of the United Kingdom.
To try to put that right - so that people know about the war
graves in their neighbourhood - the CWGC has begun a project to put
up signs identifying the sites containing war graves.
The Commission is seeking permission from local authorities to
erect three thousand signs - and this will cover only a fraction of
the sites. Altogether there are war graves at 12,300 sites in the
UK.
A second phase of the plan will involve seeking permissions from
church authorities. So far there's been a positive response for
hundreds of sites and the work of erecting the signs, from
Edinburgh to Enfield, has begun. More than 150 signs have already
been erected, with permissions granted for 130 more and permissions
pending for a further eighty.
The man leading the project is the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission's UK Operations Supervisor, Andrew Crompton. He
says it's a massive task just seeking all the necessary
permissions, but the project is now picking up speed, and good
progress has been made in the London area, so that Olympics
visitors could be among the first to benefit from the new
signs.
The Director of the Commission's UK Area, Barry Murphy, said:
"We are keen to raise awareness of these burials and to remind
people that they do not necessarily need to go to France or Belgium
to visit war graves. Since nearly every town and village has war
graves within its own local cemetery or churchyard, they can be
found almost on your own doorstep."