8:00pm Friday 6th November 2009
By Catherine Pye
DARWEN Old Cemetery is set to be turned into a heritage site by a community group determined to tackle the neglect of war graves.
Outraged town councillor John East called the first meeting this week for interested parties who wanted to deal with overgrown weeds and grass at the site, the final resting place for 90 servicemen.
He said: “It’s been a very positive first meeting and now we’re looking for a long-term plan on how we can look after these graves.
“We will be in negotiation over funding issues. We want to see if we can get help from the Probabtion Service and the Prince’s Trust.
“It’s too early to ask the town council for money because the budget hasn’t been clarified, but I’m sure that all my fellow councillors will be behind this.”
Coun East outlined further plans to carry out work with schools.
He said: “We will also be contacting the Academy and Darwen Vale High School because this could link into history lessons.
“We want to make it a heritage site and there will be a very positive link with the council’s Cottontowns website. I’ve already been round to take photographs of each war grave and the intention is to put a biography of each serviceman and woman up as well.
“As well as the war graves there are a lot of people buried there who were instrumental in making Darwen the town it has become, like the Ashton family.”
The group is now looking for more people who are interested in helping to improve the site to come forward.
Workers at Brent Stevenson Memorials have offered to re-fix for free any broken memorial where someone in the family gave their lives in either world war.
Patrick Riley, an ex-serviceman from Darwen, has also offered his help and will join Coun East in placing poppies on every war memorial in the cemetery for Remembrance Sunday.
The next meeting of the action group is on January 13 at 7pm at Bolton Road United Reformed Church.
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