This year marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day. This video explores the stories behind Yorkshire’s Commonwealth War Graves cemetery – through those who care for it. With gardeners, and craftsmen, whose job it is to tend the grass or fix the headstones and make sure it’s absolutely pristine. There are 1,000 servicemen and women buried here, including 660 Canadian Airmen who have no family nearby to tend their graves
Hi I’m uh Tim Lambert I’m the head Garner for the commor world Great Commission uh the North Region um and I look after sites like this across the whole of northern England day-to-day job is basically the Horticultural maintenance of all our sites um across the north of England making sure that
They are up to our specification looking beautiful for uh for all visitors that we get they are all individuals that gave their life for our freedom and what we have so I think to honor their and respect their their choices and their their um courage I think they should be looked
After for for their perpetuity I’m Stuart Miller I work for the com B gra commission as a c maintenance cross person uh which basically involves anything to do with a stone work the Headstones sacrifice stones of remembrance I do everything from inspecting to cleaning to straightening
Them up some of the letter in replacing old or broken headstones to um redoing all the foundations the headstones are satle um it’s usually a 2 and 1/2 year cycle from covering six counties in the northeast of England I have relatives who served also died in Second World War
I was formerly in the Army myself so it’s for me personally it’s it’s a more a pride to to be able to look after the Fallen from both Wars um and I also think that um they should not be forgotten personally um um they’re a reminder of a sacrifice given and a
Remind of the result of um politics failure so yeah I believe should be looked after there comes a point you you do look at the ages you look at what where they served what they served with and I’m privileged to meet some a lot of the
Families in various places I go to work be churchyards in the middle nowhere from replacing an old headstone a new one the families come along and and it’s to have the personal story of their relative and shown the pictures of who they were and and that is quite um
Humbling you know so uh it does bring home to me more about what my job is and why game while I’m doing it so otherwise a lot of people forget that there is a story behind every headstone there is a person and a story and a family so yeah
I I do come away quite humbly sometimes when I meet the families and the relatives so yeah to me it it makes all the difference in your job yeah