Southwark Plans for Camberwell Old & New Cemeteries.

[taper]

rendelharris Wrote:

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> Blanche Cameron Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > William Stanlake VC was buried in a public

> grave,

> > only recently rediscovered and a headstone put

> up

> > for him - by the Victoria Cross society not by

> > Southwark Council who would have dug him up

> > without even looking.

>

> Looking online at the Coldstream Guards message

> board and others, it appears that Stanlake's grave

> was in the middle of the very areas of tangled

> undergrowth you want to save, so how could anyone

> have known it was there or gone to pay their

> respects? It seems that as with so many things

> you swing through 180 degrees depending on which

> argument suits your cause, it really doesn't help

> your credibility.

I searched out Stanlake's grave last year. As you say, it's among the scrub in the "wooded" bit of COC. The Coldstream Guards association has cleared a path and the immediate area around it so it's accessible. And they've put a stone up (outside CWGC's locus as it's a Crimean VC).

Stanlake was a bit of a character by the sound of it. Died impoverished in Camberwell.

[nxjen]

"There should be proper investigation of what exists in a cemetery and where ..."

Just looking at Nunhead and West Norwood as examples, this is something Friends' Groups generally undertake.

[Penguin68]

JoeLeg/Penguin68: Are you really saying cemetery owners should NOT contact the War Graves Commission before digging up or mounding over graves? That they SHOULDN'T look to find out who and where soldiers are? Just out of simple respect for World War soldiers and their families? Or families of anyone buried in their cemeteries?

For the nth time, YES - I am saying that. It's up to the CWGC to mark war graves - where they haven't it's not up to Southwark to incur costs by doing their work for them. And I'm sorry, but war dead are really no more meritorious than any one else buried in the cemetery. The VC you talk about (a Crimean War VC) for instance is not 'war dead' - although he was a war hero. And as I have also said, a very large number of those buried in the cemetery were members of the forces and served during WW1 and/ or WWII - although most will have survived the war - and, as it's a London cemetery, a large number who didn't serve as soldiers etc. will have served in other war-time capacities and will (WWII) been put in jeopardy by the Blitz and the V weapons. I know your right-wing friends have a fixation on the military - (although some of them not the Allied military) - but it's not one I share.

[JoeLeg]

Borky Wrote:

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> 38 pages.

>

> That's an entire rain forest of hypothetical

> internet trees you have all destroyed whilst

> playing this wretched game of one upmanship over

> people long dead you never knew.

Everyone needs a hobby...

[JoeLeg]

Blanche,

Yes, pretty much, where War Graves are concerned.

It's the responsibility of the CWGC. No one else.

End of.

ETA - you don't actually understand how the CWGC works, do you...?

[edhistory]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> [...] in jeopardy by the Blitz and the V weapons. [...]

I wonder if Ms Cameron has seen the WWII bomb damage map.

[Blanche Cameron]

Burying local people locally is more important to you than nature and history and heritage.

But thousands of local people can?t use the burial plots which will also be sold to people from other boroughs. And what about the local people's graves they are burying over and soon to be digging up? So much for local burial.

More people want to save the woods and nature and history and heritage than want inner city burial.

Here is a video walk to VC Stanlake?s grave. W

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

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

[nxjen]

"Burying local people locally is more important to you than nature and history and heritage."

I don't know who this is aimed at but speaking as someone who has a keen, genuine interest in history and heritage I am proud to say that yes, the needs of the living during the difficult process of bereavement are more important in my priorities than history, endlessly fascinating though it is. Living in an area that has many, many green spaces which I frequently visit, some within only 10 minutes walk of the small area you are trying to protect, the needs of the living have greater priority than nature in COC which, in any case, will be enhanced with the proposed renovation. Anybody who places nature, history and heritage above the needs of the living and a very human need has to have a very strange outlook on life.

As for the rest of your post, it's just a few random, unsubstantiated sentences and I can't be ar*ed to respond.

[Penguin68]

Burying local people locally is more important to you than nature and history and heritage.

Yes - in so far as the 'history' is well documented and the cemeteries, as working cemeteries are also 'heritage'. There are many other areas very local to us where there is 'nature' and indeed, should you care to look without blinkers you will find an abundance of nature within the cemeteries - for instance the hay meadow in COC which would disappear under your plans (and is far closer to the original heritage of the pasture lands which were purchased for the cemeteries in the first place).

But thousands of local people can?t use the burial plots which will also be sold to people from other boroughs. And what about the local people's graves they are burying over and soon to be digging up? So much for local burial.

But hundreds can, and many of those who do die locally will prefer cremation anyway. To deprive anyone of having something because everyone can't have it is madness. Those whose graves will be lost/ disturbed (where those graves are not anyway unmarked) will have died 75 or more years ago - so most unlikely to leave grieving relatives who will actually know them. Again, you wish to deprive relatives of those who die now a local place to mourn to 'respect' the wishes of mourners almost certainly long dead themselves.

More people want to save the woods and nature and history and heritage than want inner city burial.

You imply this is an either/ or debate - but it isn't. Any plans for the cemeteries leave oodles of 'woods and nature and history and heritage' locally - I can't be bothered to list them all again, but your reductio ad abdsurdum argument suggests that you can't have both with the plans, but of course you can. And, as I have said, the cemeteries in and of themselves continue to offer history and heritage (and nature) - indeed removing them as cemeteries would be precisely to remove history and heritage - like the grave of the Crimean VC which disappeared in the 'wilding' that you so espouse until uncovered by his regiment (nothing to do with any work by ssw). Give people such a (false) either/ or choice and you get the sort of result you quoted, maybe, but it isn't either/ or at all.

[oddlycurious]

Burying local people locally is more important to you than nature and history and heritage.

wow... just wow.

[JoeLeg]

You're starting of loss the plot now Blanche, or is that really Lewis posting under your name?

[nxjen]

Whoever it is, they are doing so much spinning they are making themselves dizzy.

[dbboy]

If you purport to be FOCC although in reality the organisation is just a made up name, but aside from that, why don't you clear and keep clear the path to VC Stanlake?s grave, rather than continually bleating about woods (although they are not really woods are they) and nature and history and heritage and start doing something positive to make a difference to the overgrowth taking place around his grave.

Probably you don't think it's your responsibility do you? Well.

[Blanche Cameron]

oddlycurious Wrote:

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> Burying local people locally is more important to

> you than nature and history and heritage.

>

> wow... just wow.

Yes exactly oddlycurious. You do think burial is more important than trees and nature and heritage and history.

You support Southwark cutting down hundreds of trees, clearing the undergrowth - you can call it ugly scrub - destroying the memorials of local people, mounding over their graves and soon they'll be digging up the dead, just to sell burial plots.

And yes, it is me writing this. You barred Lewis because he said the same things I'm saying. That's my phone number is below.

Here's another photo of the Old Cemetery from above after the two acres of trees were cut down.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

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

[JoeLeg]

Err, no. Lewis got barred because he was much worse. And you know that, because if he had been saying the same things then you would also be barred.

You aren't the only person living in Southwark Blanche. Other people live here too, and they want different things from the cemetery to you. You don't get to have your way just because you want to, and had you been less, well, offensive in your approach to other locals people from the start then maybe it would have been different.

You got national press on this, it didn't change anything. The CWGC disagreed with you. The CoE doesn't seem to be helping you out. You got, what, 700 signatures on a petition that is useless. And still nothing has changed. You're fighting for something that you aren't going to get, because there's other residents who want the cemetery to be different to you, and Southwark has chosen to go with them. The sheer arrogance of your position is breathtaking.

[Blanche Cameron]

JoeLeg: That was 700 signatures in one day. Most local people want the graves and nature protected

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-southwark-woods

Where is your petition calling for cutting down trees and digging up the dead so Southwark can keep burying people?

There is still time to get to the cemetery today and at the beauty that's left. Photo attached.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

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

[JoeLeg]

You have put up a petition that only tells one (very biased) side of the story.

You claim to speak for what all of Southwark needs, but you will not countenance those who disagree.

Your various arguments have over time been debunked.

There is no way you can claim that 'most local residents' support you. All you can claim is that 'most local residents' who have only heard your (very biased) side of the story agree with you.

Your strawman arguments about any petition I might have done demonstrate your intellectual dishonesty. This is not a zero-sum game.

You happily associated with UKIP on social media. This too speaks volumes about you.

(Edited for clarity...)

[nxjen]

Blanche Cameron Wrote:

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> Where is your petition calling for cutting down

> trees and digging up the dead so Southwark can

> keep burying people?

>

A petition in support of a government/local government proposal? How very novel!

You point to the amount of signatures on your petition as support for your campaign but until you present your petition to LB Southwark your claims are meaningless. Upon presentation, it can be verified how many of the signatures are from those

- who live in Southwark

- who live elsewhere in London

- who live elsewhere in the UK

- who live somewhere else on the planet.

Even if the majority of the 11,000 signatures you claim to have are from residents of Southwark, which I suspect is most unlikely, the population of Southwark is just under a quarter of a million and the signatures would represent a very small proportion. And how many who signed were actually aware of all the facts, not the least that there is no such place as Southwark Woods?

[oddlycurious]

Hello Blanche - what was the wording on the petition please?

I'm curious how you covered more burial space for muslims and jews, the reclamation and restoration of war graves AND not doing any work at all in cemeteries across London in one go (I'll let save the hedgehogs go for now and focus on the biggies).

[Penguin68]

The fact that ssw aims and ambitions are contradictory is hardly surprising - they are trying to whistle in as many different dogs as they can to support them. Their original, and underlying, aim was to allow the existing scrub growth (wilding) to continue and indeed extend (and the cemeteries to be closed for future burial) so that the cemeteries would become wild-wood - which they never, of course were, and wouldn't now become if left untended. There was early talk of picnicking. This seemed to be under the (incorrect) impression that the area was starved of green spaces which weren't working cemeteries.

It is possible that initially this was just a huge troll and attempt to build a narrative to support (create copy for) a stand-up act. If so it has grown out of control.

Sadly it has entirely diverted those who might have been interested in contributing to the development of the cemeteries in ways which did protect some nature and some history, from participating, as they instead felt it necessary to counter untruths, hyperbole and woeful exaggeration from ssw.

Attempts to judge the work on the cemetery whilst in progress is of course to misunderstand the long-game that gardening and landscaping actually play. The way that Southwark manage the open parts (for instance by allowing hay-meadows to develop) does suggest some sensitivity to the environment - and some of the recent planting in these areas is developing nicely (the dog wood grove). So, fingers crossed...

[Blanche Cameron]

Penguin68, the petition reads: "We petition the London Borough of Southwark to stop destroying trees, open spaces and graves in Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries and make the cemeteries nature reserves."

We are campaigning for the woods and the graves and are highlighting all the various faults in Southwark's burial strategy. The 38Degrees link for anyone who wants to support the campaign is here:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-southwark-woods

A petition supporting Southwark Council would need to say: "Burying (only some) local people locally (but not others) is more important than nature and history and heritage." But no-one is campaigning for this - why not set one up?

Southwark Council Planning Committee this Thursday evening will decide whether to take three more acres of Honor Oak Nature Corridor for burial plots.

Come and tell them what a destructive waste this would be and against the results of their own 2016 consultation - 86% of respondents replied 'no burial on this site'.

Or come and tell them you want it.

Info is here: http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/object-to-area-b-development/4593742804

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods campaign

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

[edhistory]

I had not previously understood that Ms Cameron wants to stop burials in Camberwell New Cemetery as well

Does someone have a map of the Honor Oak Nature Corridor?

[JoeLeg]

That is some massive cognitive dissonance you have going on Blanche. Really amusing, also quite sad.

[oddlycurious]

Thank you Blanche

"We petition the London Borough of Southwark to stop destroying trees, open spaces and graves in Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries and make the cemeteries nature reserves."

You've campaigned quite vehemently that Southwark Council should provide provision for muslim and jewish burial on a large scale. Is this something you believe should be done in the borough, just not in Camberwell Cemeteries?

[Penguin68]

We petition the London Borough of Southwark to stop destroying trees, open spaces and graves in Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries and make the cemeteries nature reserves.

It would have been interesting to see how many would have signed up to:- 'We petition the London Borough of Southwark to stop removing unplanned scrub growth (including brambles and Japanese Knotweed) and clearing possibly toxic waste from working cemeteries (Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries), stop them for replanting with appropriate trees and shrubs and putting in effective drainage to stop water run-off and pooling during heavy rains, stop the uncovering of obscured grave markers and the repair of grave furniture, including those of war dead, where they reflect burials less than 75 years old, stop developing very old parts of the cemeteries, where there are mainly unmarked graves, to allow future burial of local people, and make the cemeteries nature reserves where there are no funds to manage these, such that they would have to be sealed from public use within the next 25 years.'...