Category: Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery

Poppy Placing Project begins.

Those of you that follow our Facebook page or web site will know that each year in the run up to Remembrance Sunday you may see some of our nine pairs of ‘Poppy Cross Placers’.

We have nine pairs of volunteers that form part of our Poppy Cross Crew.

Each year, between them, they will visit every one of the 350+ War Graves scattered throughout the cemetery and place a Poppy Cross on each. It takes a lot of their time but they come back year after year to support this project organised by the Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery. 

The Friends would like to thank them for their help with this worthwhile and emotional project and our fingers are crossed for reasonable weather!

Deutsche Bank visit again to help clear shrubbery

Staff from Deutsche Bank turned out again on the 9th to help clear a huge coppice of Holly and Ivy that had overtaken a number of graves making it impossible for family to locate or visit.

The photograph below shows the effort it takes to clear Ivy once it has got hold. Great care has to be taken to prevent damage to lead lettering. Follow this link as it shows the events of the day and a sequence of photographs detailing the progress to reveal this memorial. There were many more as well but this one took almost an hour of two peoples time and determination.

 

Nat West Staff battle the rain.

Last week we had to cancel the visit from Nat West Staff to help clear graves. As you all may remember, we were suffering from heavy rain and storm conditions -so we were concerned when it appeared things were going the same way with their replacement visit today! We needn’t have worried as three of their staff turned up undaunted and made amazing inroads into clearing the front of Section 8.

                                        

I think the difference is evident from the photographs above.? Thank you ladies and thanks to the FBEC volunteers that organised the day.

Open event in Civilian Garden

September was an unusually busy month for FBEC  with the inclusion of two ‘main’ events for us. We have featured the unveiling of our new Memorial stone but we also had an Open Event for Heritage and were able to tell visitors the stories behind the names on the Memorial.

 

We were very pleased to welcome the new local Selly Oak MP and Minister for Veterans. Al Carns. He was very interested in the records showing the sites of bomb damage and relating to the deaths of those listed on the new Memorial.

Our thanks to all those interested people who called in to chat.

 

 

NIQ Volunteers make inroads into Section 8

This is the first time that NIQ have been on site with the Friends and we hope they will return again as they all worked very hard……..and we are pretty sure they all enjoyed themselves! The area that they were working in had a section almost completely covered with large shrubs but NIQ staff worked hard and changed the end of the section completely.

 

New Memorial unveiled by Dr Carl Chinn.

All our work came good today as Dr Carl Chinn unveiled our Memorial in the Civilian Garden of Remembrance. Now the names of those buried in this area can be read by visitors. We were also pleased to welcome Councillors John Cotton and David Barker as well as Brian Wright and Matt Felkin representing BARRA accompanied by 4 Standard Bearers. Several of our volunteers joined us, as well as representatives of local history groups and FBEC committee members.

       

 

The Memorial is now on view in The Civilian Garden of Remembrance and on Saturday the 14th we will be there to give visitors more information about the people whose names are displayed.

 

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