Daughter's upset over messy Wolverhampton grave

Margaret Porter, aged 66, of Bromsgrove, was visiting the grave of her mother, Winifred Evans, on Wednesday when she and her husband Royston Porter, aged 76, made the discovery.

The flowers had been torn up whilst earth was heavily strewn across the grave at Danescourt Cemetery, based on Wergs Road, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton.

Work was being carried out to mow and strim back the grass along the graves. Once this work has been completed, the council say, maintenance workers go back to clear the earth and grass from the graves.

The discovery was made all the worse by the fact that Margaret's mother only died 12 months ago, and the family had paid for the grave stone to be properly laid to prevent sinkage.

Margaret said: "It was quite shocking and very upsetting.

"Mum only passed away 12 months ago and it's still very raw."

Winifred of Willenhall Road, was 88 when she died of pneumonia following a fall.

"We go down there as much as we can" Margaret said, "and to find it in such a state when we try to keep it looking nice, it was awful really."

The couple saw a maintenance worker using a strimmer tool nearby but decided not to confront him about the mess they thought he had caused.

Royston said: "I used to work in churchyard maintenance myself before I retired and a strimmer would be my last resort.

"It shows such little respect for the dead. It was complete chaos when we got there.

"Not only that, but there's hundreds of graves in that cemetery and I hate to think of other people visiting only to find that their loved ones' graves have been left in such a mess."

The couple spent their visit tidying up the mess and trying to get the grave back to its normal state and other family members have since visited to check on it.

Margaret said: "It took about 15 minutes to get it back to something like normal. Then my sister visited to check on it on Thursday.

"It just adds to the upset really, to think that you don't know what it's going to be like when you get there."

A council spokesman said: “People will appreciate we have to cut the grass at cemeteries to avoid it becoming untidy and overgrown.

"Great care is taken when doing this, but it is unavoidable that some grass cuttings will be blown onto some gravestones.

"Our teams always return to remove the cuttings once the mowing is finished.

"Obviously this family arrived at Danescourt while the mowing was taking place and we are sorry to hear they were upset.

"If they had spoken with our staff on site they would have been able to reassure them that the cuttings would be removed later that day.”