Strensall and Towthorpe Parish Council ban black marble headstone

11:00am Thursday 12th October 2006

By Gerran Grimshaw

WHEN Sam Smith woke to find his wife dead in their marital bed, he wanted to carry out her dying wish - but parish councillors have denied him even that.

Mr Smith, 71, of Moorland Garth, has been told by Strensall Parish Council he cannot erect a polished black marble headstone in the local cemetery.

Despite a number of the headstones already being in place in the overspill graveyard of St Mary's Church, in Strensall, the council have told him they fall foul of their regulations.

Mr Smith has collected a petition of nearly 100 signatures, supporting his battle to erect the gravestone his wife wanted.

Mr Smith said: "We were up there looking at a relative's gravestone some time ago, and my wife, Mary, saw the black marble headstones. She said she really liked them and said she wanted one when her time came."

"I woke up at ten to five in the morning with her dead in bed next to me," he said.

"And then, about four hours after I'd found my wife, I was given an internment form to sign. Obviously, I didn't read it because I was in a total state of shock. I can't even read my own signature on the form."

Mr Smith was later told that by signing the internment form he had agreed to a headstone within the council's rules - which ban the type his wife liked.

He said: "I've written to the parish council about this and they replied saying: When you requested your wife be put in the graveyard, you signed a form saying you agreed to the conditions'. But I could hardly read what I was writing. I had to ask the police to take my guns away because I was so shook up."

Mr Smith said the parish council told him they had rules governing the churchyard. However, his wife is interned in a new graveyard, separate from the church.

He said there were already eight black marble headstones in the cemetery - including two belonging to the brother and brother-in-law of the parish council clerk, Shirley Walker.

Peter Jesse, chairman of Strensall Parish Council, said two councillors who had since left the council had been responsible for mistakenly granting permission for the headstones in the nineties.

But Mr Smith said: "They're blaming a previous burial committee. Blaming the last government is the oldest trick in the book."

Mr Jesse said: "All I'm going to say regarding this cemetery matter is Mr Smith got an application form and a set of cemetery rules when he applied to have his wife interned in the graveyard. He signed the form saying he agreed to the rules. We're standing by our rules.

"We cannot cope with everyone's ideas of what they think is appropriate. Until Mr Smith came along we had no trouble."

He said it did "look a bit suspicious" that Ms Walker's relatives were among those with the black marble headstones, but insisted she had not been involved in those decisions.

Grieving family's dispute

PARISH councillors have already been involved before in a heartbreaking battle over a gravestone at the Strensall cemetery.

The grieving family of a teenage heart attack victim, Jamie Bucknell, was involved in an 11-month dispute with the parish over the design of his gravestone.

Jamie died aged 14 in November 2001. The following June, the Bucknells were ordered to remove the headstone from his grave, amid claims that an etching of his face was too big.

His family had already had a dispute with the council over its design, and had two suggested designs turned down. They originally asked for a photoplaque of Jamie's face to be included, but the council would not agree.

Councillors also objected to a heart with an arrow through it containing the name of Jamie's girlfriend, Helen.

The final, approved version included an etching of Jamie's face, slightly smaller than on the first stone, a smaller version of the heart, without the arrow, and a pair of football boots.

The dispute over Jamie's stone helped trigger a Right To Grieve campaign by The Press, which saw scores of bereaved relatives complain about problems with their loved ones' graves at cemeteries across the region. The family's plight was also highlighted in a major national report aimed at protecting the rights of grieving families.