Category: Environment

Mothering Sunday Traffic appeal.

This morning we were in Brandwood End, which was very busy as it was Mothering Sunday. Can we firstly remind everyone that there is a 5mph speed limit in the cemetery. Many cars were travelling well in excess of this causing a dangerous hazard as there were many pedestrians.

Secondly we were horrified to see vehicles parking on verges and churning up the grass adjacent to graves. The side drives were not designed for cars to be visiting so please do not drive on the grass to pass vehicles. Use another avenue or park on the main drive and walk ! Several people who had resisted parking on the verges were then being verbally abused by others who wanted to pass. Again. Use another avenue or park and walk.

This is a cemetery and people are visiting loved ones, please all show some respect!

Leaving flowers?

The Friends know that many of you will be visiting graves on Mothering Sunday and leaving flowers. Can we appeal again to ask that, if you are not frequent visitors, you remove the wrapping paper (Especially cellophane), as when the flowers die- they rot and return to the soil over time. The paper that surrounds them, especially cellophane are silver/gold paper NEVER does. It becomes lightweight and then blows around the cemetery in the wind. If we are lucky one of our litter picking volunteers will collect it but if not it may get shredded in the blades of the sit on mowers ! Either way, it can end up making the environment unpleasant.

If you are a frequent visitor then we presume you always remove dead flowers etc but many of those that do come to Brandwood End travel a distance and may get only a few opportunities to visit. If this is you- Please consider removing any flower paper. Also try not to leave ‘Glass’  vases etc as they do get smashed by Frost, Squirrels and Ravens and last summer caused great concern as a source of fire ignition in the cemetery.

Finally can we ask that any artificial flowers are well secured, as they often suffer the same fate as the paper- which is sad as many of them are beautiful and obviously bought with love.

Thank you again in anticipation of your assistance in this matter.

FBEC Committee

Cleaner and Greener !

The Cleaner Greener campaign week is a little while off, but in Brandwood End we started today at our scheduled quarterly litter pick. It was great to see so many familiar faces but we did welcome a few new ones today who swelled our numbers to 20 including 4 little people !  There were 23 bags collected, and yet again a lot of the litter was flower paper. This March Litter pick is always our last chance to seek out wind blown litter under shrubbery and tangled in brambles. Once everything starts to grow it is all lost till next winter. Thank you to everyone that came along. The Friends really appreciate your support.

Happy smiling faces! That’s what the outdoors does for your mental health.

Last clearance of shrubbery before Spring!

This month is really the last chance we have to remove self set trees and shrubbery overwhelming some graves in areas of the cemetery as soon it will be nesting time and this activity will stop.

Please support this event  on the 18th, that is being led jointly by the committee of the Friends and Bereavement Services Activities Manager, Josie Wall. We will have some tools and some gloves but if you would prefer to bring your own, that would also help. We need shears, loppers, rakes and secateurs.

We will be there from 11am till 2pm so drop in for any length of time during those hours. 

Lots to look forward to !

Winter is a quiet time in Brandwood End but the Friends have been working away in the background on a number of projects.

We are creating a number of ‘Trail sheets’ that will cover Heritage items, trees, interesting graves, fascinating memorials, quiet corners to rest and take in the wildlife and trees plus measured routes to stroll, with distances and surface types to encourage the less able to enjoy them as well.

The sheet below, kindly produced by committee member Lisa Fair, highlights some of the cemetery heritage- both historical and ecological.

They never let us down!

This week we had to make an appeal on Social Media site ‘facebook’ for volunteers to remove some of the many geraniums that the Friends planted in the Civilian Garden of Remembrance. No sooner said than done as two of our supporters stepped up to the plate and the job was done.(In freezing conditions)

We had hoped to try and keep the Geraniums over winter as the garden area is pretty sheltered- but we hadn’t banked on the -10 temperatures just before Christmas. All that was left of the glorious Geraniums was brown mush and not an attractive sight!

Thank you Vanessa and Tricia.