A MEMORIAL to York chocolate workers who laid down their lives for their country has been attacked – apparently by thieves believing it was made of a valuable metal.
The large memorial was created last year outside the entrance to Nestlé’s factory in Haxby Road and it lists about 400 names of workers for the firm’s predecessor, Rowntree, who were killed in the First and Second World Wars.
It includes replicas of memorial plaques that were originally displayed in the factory’s old dining block, now the private Nuffield Hospital.
The structure was damaged late last Friday night or early on Saturday, when someone using a chisel or screwdriver tried to force the memorial panels away from the limestone base.
“The stone is chipped at the top corner where the person responsible has tried to lever the panels off,” said a company spokesman. “Some of the larger panels were fairly loose as a result but not removed. We have now drilled the panels, which we never wanted to do, but that is now the secure option.”
He said Nestlé could only assume that someone believed the panels were some kind of metal and had a scrap value. “They are in fact made of corian, which had very little scrap value. It is composed of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate, so not something you can melt down.”
Denise Edgar, of the Royal British Legion, whose uncle, Arthur Fletcher, is one of the names on the memorial, spoke of her “utter contempt” for the thieves.
“If they only knew how important this is to the families, for some of whom this is the only memorial they have to loved ones.”
She said Arthur was the only brother to four sisters, Elsie, Ivy, Denise and her mother Norah, who went to the unveiling of the memorial last year.
A shameful act
THE would-be thieves who tried to prise panels off a memorial to Rowntree factory workers who died fighting in wars presumably thought they were made of valuable metal.
We have news for them: they weren’t. The panels, on the memorial created last year outside Nestle’s factory in Haxby Road, are composite, with no scrap value at all.
Which is not, of course, the point. Whoever these vandals were, they demonstrated an utter lack of respect for people finer than themselves.
The memorial lists the names of hundreds of former Rowntree employees who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars.
Without their sacrifice, the world we live in today would be very different.
These are people whose memory deserves to be honoured, not desecrated.
The memorial has been repaired. But the incident has been deeply hurtful to families whose loved ones it commemorates.
Denise Edgar, of the Royal British Legion, whose uncle, Arthur Fletcher, is one of those whose name is on the memorial, spoke of her contempt for the would-be thieves.
“If they only knew how important this is to the families,” she said. “For some… this is the only memorial they have to loved ones.”
We hope whoever was responsible for this act of desecration has the grace to at least feel ashamed. Even better, we hope someone who knows who they are has the courage to speak out and identify them to the police. They deserve to be taught a lesson.
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