A woman has been volunteering to clean up the “forgotten” headstones in and around her community.
Sarah Jones, 34, from Rotherham said: “I first started cleaning headstones as a personal family project after discovering a relative’s gravestone was overgrown and uncared for.”
She has been focusing on unmaintained gravestones for the last seven months, starting in Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham.
Mrs Jones said: “I just think it’s such a shame when loved ones’ graves go into disrepair and I felt as though I wanted to tidy up and restore as many of them as possible.”
She feels that just because many of the gravestones she attends are overgrown or dirty, it doesn’t mean that those buried there are uncared for.
She said: “Many of the headstones I look after are quite old and I think their relatives have most likely moved elsewhere or passed away themselves.
“I’d like to think that by looking after them, I’m keeping their memory alive.”
Mrs Jones currently visits different cemeteries when she can but would like to create a group of volunteers that could help on a regular basis to cover more ground.
“I’m aware of some groups that already exist in Sheffield, but as I live more towards Rotherham and the outskirts, I wanted to focus on these areas as I feel like they can be a bit neglected.
“I’ve seen groups like the ‘Friends of Loxley Cemetery’ in Sheffield meet up to maintain and clean up the graveyard and I felt really inspired to follow in their footsteps.”
The Friends of Loxley Cemetery is a volunteer group which formed in 2019 that works on maintaining the graveyard and restoring memorials in the chapel, which is now permanently closed to the public.
Mrs Jones said: “I think projects like these are so important, in not only respecting the dead and restoring their memory but also in documenting history and finding out about who the names on the headstones are.”
She is planning to create a volunteer group online and says that the community groups seem interested and supportive.
She added: “I have at least ten people interested in joining so far. We just need to work out the logistics but we’re hoping to start in the next couple of months.”