Cemetery's unsafe headstones are toppled

Cemetery bosses were warned that graves at Ratho Cemetery were sinking and that the ground was becoming unstable, but they decided to postpone work on filling them in.

Now several gravestones have been declared unsafe and laid flat for fear they would fall on someone.

Denise Dickson was distraught when she discovered that the grave of her parents, Margaret and Matthew Fry, had been knocked down.

Ms Dickson, of Whitburn, West Lothian - whose grandmother, Elizabeth Stewart is also buried in the family plot at the cemetery - said something should have been done long before the gravestones grew unsafe.

She said: "My dad died on June 4, 1999. I always attend on the anniversary to put flowers down. This year I went there only to find the gravestone was lying flat.

"There was a notice put up at the entrance to the graveyard saying they had taken stones down because they were unsafe.

"I was aware the level of earth was going down - I had to keep filling it up myself - but I wasn't expecting that.

"I have had to leave my mother and father's gravestones lying on the ground. People will think we don't care and no-one's attending the grave.

"My parents lived in Ratho all their lives and people there must think, 'they're dead and their children aren't bothered'."

Ms Dickson had become so concerned about the grave caving in that she had taken to refilling it herself, as well as complaining to the council.

She said the problem grew so bad that "I felt like I was above a big hole and I was going to disappear any minute and land with my mum and dad."

"The council is responsible and the cemetery has been like that for some time," she said.

"Someone working at the cemetery should have noticed what was going on."

The council admitted that work on refilling graves had been put off until the autumn, but insisted that there were good grounds for the delay.

Officials said that part of the work would involve re-turfing the graves, and that the best time to do that was to wait until the soil was wetter so grass has more chance of growing.

A council spokeswoman said: "Often graves do need to be back-filled due to the coffin breaking down and the earth consolidating.

"We carry out regular back-fills in the colder months. If we were to back-fill a grave in the summer the turf would dry out and further work would be required.

"We have been in contact with Ms Dickson and we have explained that her parent's grave will be back-filled this autumn."