Recent Additions    & Updates Contact author Revealed: an unknown soldier of Ypres Old Allies honoured on Remembrance Day Great War veterans lead Cenotaph march past The youngest casualty Unveiling of plaque to Capt Bruce Bairnsfather Limited edition Bruce Bairnsfather postcard issued First-hand stories by surviving US veterans Story with a happy ending... News Clips 2001-3 Survivor of first world war dies at 108 Evening whispers on the Somme (poem) Scotland's oldest man turns 107 The Soldier's Sweetheart New Writing by new writers Memorial Gates Trust Search the site Private William McBride Buried far from the battlefield Private Sydney Bone Unusual or intriguing war memorials The Accrington Pals Amazon Bookstore Site Information Contents FAQ Contact Author   Resources Index of Poems Newsclips 2001 Further Reading Notes & Queries Can you help Useful links original content © 2002

from The Daily Telegraph  Friday 13 October 2000

War graves gardeners fear the axe
By David Sapsted on the Somme

THE men who tend the graves and memorials of more than half a million British and Commonwealth war dead in France fear that they will eventually be replaced by cheap local labour.

This follows news this week that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is cutting the gardeners' and caretakers' living allowance leading to savings of about pounds 300,000 a year.The move, which will reduce the men's take-home pay by at least 25 per cent, has the backing of the Government. It has provoked anger on both sides of the Channel.

But there is a feeling of impotence among the 60 British gardeners caring for the 800 immaculate cemeteries and memorials in northern France. "What are we going to do, go on strike?" Terry Smithies, a senior head gardener in the Somme sector, asked yesterday. "Everyone knows we could not down tools and let the graves and cemeteries go to ruin. Call it pride or patriotism or what you will, we just couldn't do it."

Mr Smithies, 46, from Manchester, covers 39 cemeteries and two memorials. He has a team of 12 - two Britons and 10 Frenchmen - to look after about 20,000 graves. After 20 years working in France, his basic salary is £13,600. This is augmented by an annual overseas allowance of £14,000, including extra sums for his two children aged eight and 11. In phased reductions of pounds 1,500 a year, the allowance is to be halved.

"The commission reportedly said that 'anyone can cut grass'," Mr Smithies said amid the bowling green lawns of the cemetery at Peronne, the final resting place of 1,600 young men. "There are two answers to that. One is, have you ever seen a Frenchman cut a lawn? He waits until it is over his ankles then gets out the rotary mower once a month.

"The second thing is that this job is about much more than mowing a lawn. There is the horticultural side, involving the plants on the front and back borders of the graves. Then there is the yearly maintenance and treatment of each of the headstones. Finally, there is that indefinable element of talking to and helping thousands of visitors each year."

The scope of the work is extensive: the smallest of the 39 cemeteries in the Peronne area contains 27 graves, the largest 2,500. At nearby Thiepval the War Commission memorial bears the names of 70,000 First World War dead, while not far away is a tiny cemetery containing the remains of Indian and Chinese dead.

The Peronne cemetery, lined with the Chinese tree paulownia, contains not only Britons who fell on the Somme, but also Germans, who controlled the immediate area until the bloody push and counter-attack of 1918.

There are victims of the Second World War there, too, including an RAF bomber crew who perished in a crash in December 1939. There are also the graves of Australian twins, who were shot on the same day in 1918.

Each of the headstones, many just marked "A Soldier of the Great War", has a 2ft wide flower bed replanted every year with roses and herbaceous and Alpine plants. The lawns are cut once a week with British cylinder mowers.

"It is challenging and interesting work," said Philip Saunders, 40, a head gardener on the Somme for 12 years who recently became a Royal Horticultural Society master in horticulture. "The problem now is that the commission is telling us we can maintain the highest standards with, in my case, a 30 per cent cut in pay and the consequent reduction in the standard of living for me and my family.

"We can't help see it as an orchestrated attempt by the commission to get rid of us and replace us with local labour on the minimum wage." The commission denies this. It says that the new allowances will enable standards to be maintained in cemeteries of Commonwealth war victims the world over.

The men's union, the Transport and General Workers, is likely to challenge the changes in the courts, claiming that the cut in allowances is tantamount to unfair dismissal. The union said it was imperative that the number of British gardeners, cut by about 120 in 20 years, was not reduced further.