Up till earlier this year we were pretty sure we had 44 commonwealth war graves in the old cemetery. Some were the sturdy white standard-issue headstone, and some were family headstones – but all in the care of the CWGC who would visit every other year to give them a clean-up. And of course each year on Armistice Day our volunteer group would lay a poppy at the foot of each CWG.
Earlier this month (March) one of our volunteers was walking through the cemetery and she spotted the recognisable CWGC white van – and went to find out what they were doing there on this occasion.
It appears that the CWGC had been sifting through their records and have found documents to support that the burial place for Robert Stephen Clarke, which is a private family headstone, should indeed be classified as a CWG – bringing the total CWGs in this cemetery from 44 to 45!
