Southwark Plans for Camberwell Old & New Cemeteries.

[ianr]

Anyone wanting to know Edith Williams' cause of death can apply for a copy of her death certficate:

Deaths Dec 1918 Williams Edith O 19 Camberwell 1d 1872

Attached is a copy of a typical ad for WRAF Immobile Branch recruits.

? 2017 Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited (British Newspaper Archive http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ )

[dbboy]

It's sickening and disrespectful both to those who died, their families and God.

If you think the murder of 22 innocent people is something to joke about, makes you nothing less than SCUM.

[bsand]

No. He is one of the world's most undiscovered greatest comics....and a messenger from God.

[dbboy]

Less of ls and back to debating the cemeteries please.

[Penguin68]

As Lewis is banned from this forum quoting tweets etc, of his which are not thread relevant may not be helpful to debate. The fact of his banning speaks to his general (troll) character - there is no need to add further evidence. However, picking up on the use of other media in ssw's pursuit of their dubious aims does seem appropriate, where thread relevant.

I saw the memorial to Edith Williams on the Wall yesterday - a later addition to others appropriate to the date of her death. To be so commemorated I would assume that she was on duty when whatever happened, happened. A tragedy for her family, considering how very close to the Armistice she must have joined. The memorial on the wall is entirely sufficient for Remembrance (as it is for all those who fell and were never identified or had a named grave in France and elsewhere). She died at a time when Spanish Flu was devastating the world (more died of that than in combat) - and she would have been at the most vulnerable age. The fact that she was buried in a common grave may be linked to that, mortality was fierce.

The outbreak hit the UK in a series of waves, with its peak at the end of WW1. Returning from Northern France at the end of the war, the troops travelled home by train. As they arrived at the railway stations, so the flu spread from the railway stations to the centre of the cities, then to the suburbs and out into the countryside. Not restricted to class, anyone could catch it. Prime Minister David Lloyd George contracted it but survived. Some other notable survivors included the cartoonist Walt Disney and Kaiser Willhelm II of Germany.

Young adults between 20 and 30 years old were particularly affected and the disease struck and progressed quickly in these cases. Onset was devastatingly quick. Those fine and healthy at breakfast could be dead by tea-time. Within hours of feeling the first symptoms of fatigue, fever and headache, some victims would rapidly develop pneumonia and start turning blue, signalling a shortage of oxygen. They would then struggle for air until they suffocated to death.

Hospitals were overwhelmed and even medical students were drafted in to help. Doctors and nurses worked to breaking point, although there was little they could do as there were no treatments for the flu and no antibiotics to treat the pneumonia.

During the pandemic of 1918/19, over 50 million people died worldwide and a quarter of the British population were affected. The death toll was 228,000 in Britain alone. Global mortality rate is not known, but is estimated to have been between 10% to 20% of those who were infected.

Source:- http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Spanish-Flu-pandemic-of-1918/

[taper]

Albert McKenzie, the only World War 1 VC in COC, died of Spanish Flu in November 1918.

[Blanche Cameron]

If Southwark had contacted the CWGC when they were planning all of this - and listened to them - they wouldn't be in the position to defend driving roads over war graves or leaving 23 war graves without headstones.

The poor treatment of the service personnel buried in the cemeteries and their families is just another reason why Southwark's plans have to stop.

It is still possible to object to plans to destroy three acres of Metropolitan Open Land - the Old Plant Nursery site in the Honor Oak Nature Corridor. It is a recorded habitat of hedgehogs, bats, butterflies, reptiles and other wildlife.

'Area B' has never been used for burial plots ? after this it will be unusable for anything else.

http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/last-chance-to-save-area-b/4593888168

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

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

[Penguin68]

If Southwark had contacted the CWGC when they were planning all of this - and listened to them - they wouldn't be in the position to defend driving roads over war graves or leaving 23 war graves without headstones.

The poor treatment of the service personnel buried in the cemeteries and their families is just another reason why Southwark's plans have to stop.

OK - this is just rubbish.

1. It is the CWGC, not Southwark, that is responsible for identifying and marking 'war graves'. As has been reported above, numbers of these graves were never initially marked, and indeed the 'warriors' were buried in common graves. The CWGC is on record as saying that it wouldn't be possible to mark some of the interment sites anyway, as the exact locations of bodies in common graves is not recorded. ['warriors' only because some of the 'war dead' were not front-line troops but, effectively, non-combatants - no less brave or worthy of memorial, but not actually warriors in any real sense.]

2. How treating service personnel buried in COC identically with any other interment is 'poor' treatment I don't know. I would also challenge just how many of their families now visit (but of course they couldn't in the scrub area) any graves - indeed for WWI burials the only family visiting would be people who have never met these war dead.

3. I don't think Southwark is 'defending' their path and roadway plans, but working with the CWGC to sort the issues out - remember Southwark has no special duty to mark out war dead - that fell to the CWGC in 1917.

'Area B' has never been used for burial plots ? after this it will be unusable for anything else.

Picnics? Football? - it's Area B of a cemetery - burial plots sort-of come with the territory.

Edited to add - 'Oh, and the honor oak nature corridor is another made-up thing, like southwark woods'. I have also just noted that Blanche is riding her hobbyhorse on a Momentum site as well on FB (a bit of googling got me there) so she is happy to involve extremes of left and right in her cause. An equal opportunity maven then.

[nxjen]

Do you have any evidence Blanche that Southwark are not making changes to their paths and roadway layout in light of the comments CWGC made in their email of 27 March which you posted a screenshot of? I see no evidence of Southwark "defending" their plans and going ahead as per their original design. Your comments are just unfounded mischievous conjecture at the moment.

[rendelharris]

Penguin68 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> 2. How treating service personnel buried in COC

> identically with any other interment is 'poor'

> treatment I don't know. I would also challenge

> just how many of their families now visit (but of

> course they couldn't in the scrub area) any graves

> - indeed for WWI burials the only family visiting

> would be people who have never met these war dead.

Typical lies from FOCC SSW opponents: the 104-year-old son or daughter of a war hero who last met their parent when aged five in 1918 could easily be paying a visit. Can you prove they wouldn't be?

Well it's no sillier than some of their other arguments.

[Penguin68]

the 104-year-old son or daughter of a war hero who last met their parent when aged five in 1918 could easily be paying a visit. Can you prove they wouldn't be?

Good one, rendel...

Unless mighty fit they would be hard pressed to - the scrub and undergrowth would preclude wheel chair access and anyway they would need cutters to get through to some of the (marked) graves. But that's part of the point - much of the area being worked on has become completely inaccessible - so graveside visits of families would not be possible. Southwark is bringing the cemetery up-to-date making old burials (those less than 75 years old anyway) for those who are still alive to mourn more accessible. And allowing new burial where there are (often unmarked) very old graves.

The talk of respect for families is rubbish, when the families could not access these graves at all. But I am sure we will be hearing it for the mourning centenarians shortly.

[Blanche Cameron]

Penquin68, you're making the same point again. You've mentioned how Southwark could have easily located all the war graves via the CWGC or Deceased Online etc - so why say they couldn?t have found them?

Six of the 48 service personnel are from the WW2 era - buried there as late as 1947. Southwark is developing over them and the other 42, and the 47,952 other dead. Whether they have living relatives (or any relatives) or not, Southwark should have looked for them and should be looking after them.

This project will eventually be stopped simply because it is incredibly destructive - WW1 and WW2 war graves developed over, religious discrimination of the burial service, acres of beautiful inner London woods destroyed and thousands of graves mounded over or dug up.

The photo is of one of the beautiful glades this week - another reminder of the importance of making these cemeteries nature reserves.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods Campaign

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

[Penguin68]

You've mentioned how Southwark could have easily located all the war graves via the CWGC or Deceased Online etc - so why say they couldn?t have found them?

No, I have been making precisely the opposite point, which is that Southwark have NO OBLIGATION to identify graves of the 'war dead' - that is an obligation placed on the CWGC since 1917. Do keep up (and the fact that you cannot even get my pseudonym right does suggest a lack of attention).

It was always possible for relatives of war deceased in the UK to have them buried in family or local or parish plots, and they would still be commemorated (unit, rank) on War Memorials - which is where the focus of remembrance actually is in the UK. So their place of burial, where even known, is of less significance. My (war dead) uncle is buried in Brittany - his brother (my father) mourned him in the UK. That was fine.

Neither does Southwark have any requirement to pick out any particular class of relict of the deceased to whom to make specific notifications of its plans - it treats (and should be expected to treat) all its buried 'customers' equally.

Your pretty picture - if there are dead people under there - exactly where, I wonder, and how will their mourners find them to mourn? But then what few memorials there actually are are completely lost under the undergrowth - which is exactly the scandal which Southwark is now having to put right.

You are living in a fantasy land.

[dbboy]

I agree that it is a scandal that Southwark allowed part of the cemeteries to become overgrown wildernesses, this is being put right with the works they are undertaking which those paying council tax are funding.

If these works did not take place monuments (like the angel you recently posted on here) will become even more and more in-twined by brambles and weeds, making them additionally dangerous, nature always takes control unless man intervenes and takes control.

As has been so elegantly explained above to you and for the umpteenth time, it is CWGC who are responsible for identifying and marking war graves, what bit of this can you not grasp.

Clearly as your attempt to use the issue of war graves is being so well rebuffed you are reverting to your other weak card of religious discrimination of the burial service, oh how very sad of you to do this and how low will you stoop?

Only if you have had to bury someone, would you even start to understand the importance of having a place to go and remember and mourn them.

You have said nothing recently about the injunction you intended to serve on Southwark, perhaps you'd like to provide an update of your progress with this?

So finally, this is NOT a project, it is planned works which will continue till its completion providing new burial plots for those who want to bury their deceased relatives locally.

[Blanche Cameron]

dbboy: One person?s overgrown wilderness is another?s beautiful wildness. One man?s untidy lawn is another man?s meadow.

Southwark has just informed us it is going to Planning Committee on June 15th with plans to take three more acres of the Honor Oak Nature Corridor for sterile burial plots. The Old Nursery Site by the train station.

Very few people have actually seen Area B recently as it?s behind hoardings. See the link and photo attached from today.

http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/last-chance-to-save-area-b/4593888168

The land is recorded as habitat for reptiles, hedgehogs and bats,and Southwark want to put in 1000+ burial plots and mown lawn.

86% in Southwark?s own consultation said they don?t want burial on here and, of the burial options, most wanted woodland or meadow burial. Developer Southwark ignores what people say. When it?s gone it?s gone.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods Campaign

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

[JoeLeg]

That's a lot of really well avoided questions there Blanche.

Fantastic political skills there - have you considered running for Southwark Council? You're really no better than them!

[edhistory]

"Honor Oak Nature Corridor"

What is the proper name for this area?

[dbboy]

What are you going to do when the planning committee approve the works as they will undoubtedly do and then proceed with the works?

Are you and Lewis going to chain yourself's together in the Council chamber, now that I'd like to see!!!!!!

And finally, you have not answered the question I asked about serving the injunction on the council, have you now dropped the idea?

[Blanche Cameron]

You could ask Southwark Council why they haven?t done a burial needs assessment, an environmental impact assessment, or consulted the families, why they didn?t count all trees being felled, or contact the Environment Agency or the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, until we raised the alarm, why they won?t release financial details which are supposedly in the public domain?

These are just a few of the questions we?ve been asking Southwark Council for two years.

Now they?re planning burial on a site where 86% of respondents said they didn?t want any burial, Area B in the New Cemetery - a site that never had any burial at all. Why is Southwark is ignoring its own consultation?

Here is a photo taken in Camberwell Old Cemetery lanes a few days ago - it?s beautiful. Come and visit this weekend.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods Campaign

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

[edhistory]

"Honor Oak Nature Corridor"

What is the proper name for this area?

[dbboy]

Southwark have not engaged with your group because of the way you have conducted this campaign in particular with the Council Officers.

1. Burial needs assessment - what purpose would that serve, their is a need in the borough for burial and cremation, they provide that service, you just object to any burial or cremation.

2. Environmental impact assessment - of what, oh you mean the trees that propagated in the over grown bits of the cemeteries.

3. Consult with families, they did, did you not see the notices on the entrances to the cemeteries?

4. Count all the trees felled, what benefit would that serve, a waste of time doing so?

5. Contact the Environment Agency - what purpose would that serve?

6. Contact CWGC - the CWGC have no issues with Southwark and where changes have been highlighted, Southwark will amend their plans accordingly.

7. Financial details - they obviously don't want you interfering any further, so only provide you with what is essential.

Again the vast majority of this falls back on you in the way you have attempted to conduct your campaign. As I have said numerous times before, you need to work with and not in opposition to Southwark if you want to achieve anything, plus what is happening with the Injunction you wanted to serve on Southwark??

Probably the only thing we seem to agree on is the scandal of Southwark allowing part of the cemeteries to become overgrown wildernesses which is being corrected and you object to. The difference is that were people like trimmed hedges, bushes and lawns and spring bulbs in rows, you clearly don't and prefer weeds and brambles.

[JoeLeg]

"Raised the alarm"?

Oh Blanche, you do think a lot of yourself. Mind you, someone has to...

I'll repeat what I said before. When I first questioned Lewis over the SSW proposals and disagreed with some of them, he was agressive and rude, setting a pattern that has continued since. Had you adopted a more cooperative tone and been willing to listen to local residents (of which I am one, I live closer to the cemetery than you or Lewis), then you might not be seen now as the appalling people you act like. Your acquisition of the war graves issue (in which you are very wrong), has not helped.

You screwed up your chances to be taken seriously, and now you have no hope. You could have been so much more.

[nxjen]

See Daily Telegraph 10 March 2017 that reports on Diocese's faculty judgment. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/10/war-graves-lost-court-gives-council-permission-bury-civilians/

This article reports that LB Southwark and the CWGC were already in dialogue and had already reached agreement in principle regarding the way forward. It goes on to say "Blanche Cameron, chair of Friends of Camberwell Cemetery, said that the group did not know about the war graves until the Church's judgement came out". And still they claim to have "raised the alarm"

[alex_b]

I'm confused... Are they burying people on "a site that never had any burial at all" or are they "developing over ... 47,952" bodies.

I am finding this thread strangely fascinating...

[Penguin68]

To be fair, the answer is (sort-of) yes - Southwark is both planning to bring into use an area of cemetery (I think much of it hard standing) in CNC into first use for burials, and additionally will be re-using parts of COC for new burials as well - not I think mounding over quite as many bodies as is being claimed, but certainly some. These will be burials dating back at least 75 years (in many/ most cases much more) many of whom are in unmarked graves anyway - so nothing material on the ground, in these cases, is being lost. And some memorials, lost to scrub, will be re-exposed.