Southwark Plans for Camberwell Old & New Cemeteries.

[Blanche Cameron]

There are more than enough arguments to stop this project.

We've just published the names of the 131 First World War soldiers missing in the old cemetery. Many, if not most, were local - coming from East Dulwich, Nunhead, Camberwell, and Lewisham. Their graves are at risk of being buried over or having roads built on top of them.

Southwark Council has been selling burial plots over the dead since 2013 without locating scattered war graves.

Surely you don't support burying over or building over our nation's war dead?

http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/missing-131-ww1-soldiers-names/4593878330

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

07731 304 966 / [email protected] / www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[dbboy]

"We've just published the names of the 131 First World War soldiers missing in the old cemetery. Many, if not most, were local - coming from East Dulwich, Nunhead, Camberwell, and Lewisham. Their graves are at risk of being buried over or having roads built on top of them."

You actually do not know where there graves are either? More grasping at short straws, so have you contacted CWGC to discuss this or ask their advice? Have you asked to search Southwarks records ? Camberwell Authority (sorry, cannot recall it's proper name) to see where these graves are, suggest you get proactive and do something positive, rather than publish unsubstantiated stories.

But you can't because FOCC / ssw are unaccountable, unrecognised and do not exist, well not until you form a recognised organisation like FONC, but didn't they want nothing to do with you?

[edhistory]

The post by burbage is worthy of a closer read.

[oddlycurious]

Considering the events of this week I would have hoped Blanche and Lewis would have toned down their dog whistle approach to the far right, but I hoped in vain.

[JoeLeg]

Blanche Cameron Wrote:

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>

>

> Surely you don't support burying over or building

> over our nation's war dead?

>

> http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/missing-131-w

> w1-soldiers-names/4593878330

>

> Blanche Cameron

> Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark

> Woods campaign

> 07731 304 966 / [email protected] /

> www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

Speaking as a former British Army serviceman, and having recently spoken to some people I know who frankly are better informed than you, Blanche, I've confirmed in my mind (I know there's no changing yours) what I suspected; that you now very little about the CWGC and its workings/remit, and you are only using this argument because your others have failed.

I personally think it's disgusting that you will use those who fell to achieve your aims, given that you wouldn't be referencing them if your other arguments (of which you claim there are many but strangely seem to be failing) were succeeding.

It is vile opportunistic posturing on your part. The honouring of the dead is not limited to those who fell in battle. That's what we have memorials and Remembrance Sunday for, plus other occasions; specific times and places when we give thanks for those who died so that others might live. Put bluntly, if the CWGC is ok with it, then pretty much all members of the Armed Forces will be too. You seem not to understand that.

Your pathetic attempts - and they are pathetic - to play on the sentiments of some local Walter Mitty types and garner support by pretending you care about fallen soldiers are as transparent as they are repulsive. Penguin68 has far more coherently rebutted your arguments regarding these graves (including the fact that the grave of someone who had once been a soldier is not the same thing as the grave of a soldier who died in battle). All I can add to that is to repeat the point that we have proper memorials and occasions partly because it is - sadly - impossible to track down everyone, particularly from the First World War. That doesn't mean their memory is defaced.

At the going down of the sun, we still remember them. But life goes on.

[nxjen]

"There are more than enough arguments to stop this project."

Well no there aren't. Arguments, as focc / ssw have demonstrated, are very easy to manufacture but an argument that will sway a court of law is a different matter and it will only be through the legal process that Southwark's plans will be halted. How's the legal challenge going BTW?

[oddlycurious]

"There are more than enough arguments to stop this project."

What you meant to type was...

"We believe our arguments are enough to stop this project."

...which isn't the same thing by a country mile.

Had you not insulted the CoE, you could have worked with them to scale back some of the plans. Had you not rubbed the CWGC up the wrong way they might have been inclined to consider your opinions. You've burnt bridge after bridge and are clinging to the hope The Sun or The Daily Mail listen to your insincere cobblers about 'our boys'.

[nxjen]

"We've just published the names of the 131 First World War soldiers missing in the old cemetery."

No they're not "missing in the old cemetery", the locations of their graves are easily found on https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch. As you're so concerned, I'm surprised you didn't know that.

[Otta]

You couldn't make this stuff up.

[nxjen]

Otta - that's exactly what they are doing!

[Penguin68]

We've just published the names of the 131 First World War soldiers missing in the old cemetery. Many, if not most, were local - coming from East Dulwich, Nunhead, Camberwell, and Lewisham. Their graves are at risk of being buried over or having roads built on top of them.

As I have said before, responsibility for locating and marking the graves of war dead was passed to the newly formed Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1917 - this was relatively easy as regards existing inhumations at the Front, where records were kept by the army and where burial (often only temporary) was mainly in dedicated sites. For UK burials (of those invalided home who died of wounds) until 1917 many would have been buried in local cemeteries, with family grave markers (or none) and in no specific places - just where there was then space. Some were buried in unmarked (parish) graves. Local authorities (for municipal cemeteries) and local churches (for churchyard burials) kept records, of course, but not separately. These dead were never 'missing' - just organised as parishioners and not soldiers (as they were buried as parishioners). The CWGC had a great deal on its hands immediately after the war - and, frankly, failed to deliver fully its remit as regards UK pre 1917 war-dead burials.

But all these dead were buried (often by their families) with love and respect. It was the CWGC's responsibility - not Southwark's to 'mark' their graves. So the failure to identify and mark the graves in COC (where they could be discovered - some were unmarked and in common graves) is down to the CWGC and not Southwark - although as has been noted nobody (rightly) considered it an issue until the ssw mavens got started.

It is clear the the CWGC is happy with the attitude taken by Southwark, when an issue not in its direct remit was brought to its attention.

As I have also said, COC is full of dead soldiers, sailors and airmen who served but didn't die in WWI and WWII, and nurses, and firemen etc. etc. All have served their fellows, all deserve our respect for that service. All have it, without making a fetish of their burial sites or memorials.

This is all about getting right-wing bully boys to join the fray, by waving a flag which at least one half of ssw doesn't himself wear, and whose country was rather late in turning up for the fray(s) at all. If you do want to rally nationalists it would surely help to be one of that nation?

[Blanche Cameron]

Yes it is easy to find these records.

In seven years all Southwark had to do was go to Deceased Online or FindaGrave - or their own records - or call the CWGC - to find there were WW1 war graves in areas being mounded and tarmacked over, and soon dug up.

Southwark knew the servicemen and women were there, somewhere - they are on the War Memorial. They just did not find out where. Instead, they chose to lay out the burial plots and the roads without checking.

The names of the 131 from WW1 are here for local families to view:

http://savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/missing-131-ww1-soldiers-names/4593878330

Come to our Families and Friends Day on Sunday 25th June

http://savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/families-protest-grave-robbery/4593842405

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

07731 304 966 / [email protected] / www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[nxjen]

As Penguin has said, the onus was not on Southwark Council to locate these graves as it appears that CWGC knew the locations of these "missing" graves and are in agreement with Southwark's proposals. Your attempts to create tabloid hysteria are failing miserably.

[oddlycurious]

CWGC statement on the matter issued yesterday: http://www.cwgc.org/news-events/news/2017/5/commonwealth-war-graves-commission-statement-regarding-planned-works-at-camberwell-old-cemetery.aspx

Which states quite clearly they've been in contact with the council during the process and are happy with proceedings.

This will be good news to Blanche and Lewis who were very concerned about our boys.

[Blanche Cameron]

We do not know how 'happy' the CWGC is with Southwark. The CWGC were brought in, we believe, in 2016 and development had been going on for years.

We wrote the CWGC asking

Whether soldiers have been or are to be developed over?

Whether all WW1 and WW2 war graves of servicemen and women will have CWGC headstones?

And how is the CWGC locating families or agencies about the war graves, including at least six from Commonwealth countries including Australia and Canada.

Here is the link to our letter to the CWGC:

http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/focc-appeals-for-cwgc-help/4593880728

And the list of the 131 servicemen and women whose graves are not marked:

http://savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/southwark-dishonours-war-dead/4593850197

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

07731 304 966 / [email protected] / www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[edhistory]

Burbage Wrote:

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> A more immediate question might be what's

> happening to the collected signatures? Who holds

> them now, was a fully-compliant Fair Processing

> Notice issued, and were appropriate contact

> details provided?

>

> Such minutiae are often overlooked, but Data

> Protection doesn't just cover electronic data and

> SSW/FOCC don't appear to have either a privacy

> policy or a physical address. As I'd hate anyone

> to get into any more trouble on account of such

> minor lapses, I'd suggest they sort that out

> first.

It is an offence to hold such data without a registered Data Controller.

It is an offence not to reveal the Data Controller on request.

It is an offence not to provide a data subject with a copy of their held data.

The Register is here: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/what-we-do/register-of-data-controllers/

[nxjen]

"The CWGC were brought in, we believe, in 2016 and development had been going on for years."

And FOCC ssw showed no interest or knowledge of the war graves until 2017 when they took the "cause" up for their own opportunistic ends.

[nxjen]

Ssw: "We do not know how 'happy' the CWGC is with Southwark."

CWGC: "The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has agreed with the London Borough of Southwark that: no war graves will be disturbed during the planned works at Camberwell Old Cemetery, that no burials will take place above the war graves and that we will be able to mark graves which were previously inaccessible.

We only have responsibility for the war graves and these have all been identified and will not be affected by the works."

They seem pretty happy to me. Don't think they will be when they see your rude and aggressive letter.

[oddlycurious]

Blanche and/or Lewis, depending...

You had no idea the graves were there until the report came out last year. You claim to be the Friends Of Camberwell Cemetery but have ZERO interest in its history or heritage. The only thing you give a fig about are the trees and as you've lost that battle you're now flailing around at anything and towards anyone that may slow down the works out of nothing but spite.

[nxjen]

And it's despicable the way you're now trying to "reach out" to family members of those who are buried there, soldiers and civilians, to prey upon their emotions in the hopes of forming a pressure group that will prevent the works.

[dbboy]

You are NOT the Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries because FOCC is not recognised and has no legal status

You "showed no interest or knowledge of the war graves until 2017"

Clearly roads, footpaths, terraces or other structures will not be built over any grave - this is a ludicrous thing to state.

It's really interesting that you have only written to CWCG TODAY, when you have known about this from the start of the year, what stopped you if as you say you are so concerned. I tend to believe that you are only using this because everything else you have done has, well quite frankly has failed and you're now clutching at any straw you can find.

Have you asked yourselves why and how you have managed to rub up practically everyone you've come into contact the wrong way, so alienating yourselves, strange that really.

[ruffers]

oddlycurious Wrote:

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> Blanche and/or Lewis, depending...

>

> You had no idea the graves were there until the

> report came out last year. You claim to be the

> Friends Of Camberwell Cemetery but have ZERO

> interest in its history or heritage. The only

> thing you give a fig about are the trees and as

> you've lost that battle you're now flailing around

> at anything and towards anyone that may slow down

> the works out of nothing but spite.

This

[Otta]

Otta Wrote:

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> You couldn't make this stuff up.

nxjen Wrote:

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> Otta - that's exactly what they are doing!

Hahaha

[Blanche Cameron]

dhboy, you posted:

"Clearly roads, footpaths, terraces or other structures will not be built over any grave - this is a ludicrous thing to state."

Please see attached letter from the CWGC to Southwark Council regarding their proposal to put a road (or as they call it "a pathway") over war graves.

"...note that grave 25680 lies directly under a new pathway on the plans which sent to dated 14.11.16, as does 25626. Would it be possible to adjust this layout so that these two burials are not built upon and made inaccessible?"

Ludicrous, indeed.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

07731 304 966 / [email protected] / www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[edhistory]

Who is the Data Controller who is responsible for has custody of the petition?