Gina Davidson: Ashes horrors must be aired

THE scandal which has 
engulfed Mortonhall Crematorium since December, when it was first revealed that babies’ ashes had been buried while parents were told there would be none to collect, has been incredibly difficult for all those involved.

From the parents who have realised that they were lied to by crematoria staff – going back decades – to the staff at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary who told the bereaved there would be no ashes on the advice of the crematorium, to those now investigating just what went on at the Howdenhall Road institution and of course the staff now working there, no-one has been left unmoved by the revelations.

Many mums and dads who perhaps never spoke to anyone before about the loss of their child, whether they were stillborn or died shortly after birth, have found a voice and are using it, demanding answers about just what happened to the remains of their longed-for baby. Yet there will also be many who find the whole issue so disquieting and painful that their reaction is to wish it all away – all over again.

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They have no desire to speak out about their loss, or about their fears that the remains of their child were perhaps not treated in the way they had hoped, which is why I have been asked on a number of occasions whether covering such a story, writing of babies’ ashes being “dumped”, of “mass graves” and “mass cremations”, is something we should be doing. Not that there’s been pressure to cover up what went on at Mortonhall, more a request to think of those who are affected but who are not necessarily active in the parents’ campaign for answers. For they too are emotionally affected every time there’s a new headline.

It’s a difficult issue. Who cannot feel sympathetic to that argument? But if a local newspaper such as this does not uncover such appalling practices, does not publicise them and try to help right the wrongs, then what is it for?

There is a lot of anger in 
Edinburgh about what went on at Mortonhall for the last 40-odd years – and it’s not just coming from those directly affected.

It’s the same kind of anger people feel when they discover they have been duped by any institution, be it politicians claiming thousands in expenses from the public purse, reporters who have broken the law and hacked into people’s phones in a race to get an exclusive story, or the blind eye the BBC turned to the actions of serial paedophiles such as Jimmy Savile. It’s an anger of feeling let down by a person or organisation in which you have put your faith.

A crematorium is the last place people put such faith. It’s the last time they get to say goodbye to their loved one. It’s the place they want peace and closure in their grief, giving that person the send-off they would have wanted.

It’s the last place they want to have to go back to years after they thought that’s what they had achieved because it transpires that those in whom they’d placed their faith were telling them one thing and doing another.

I have no idea just how painful losing a baby must be. I have an inkling from talking to those who have, that the wretched loss they feel never leaves them. The plans they had for that child are snatched from them, the dreams, the hopes, the laughs, the homework, the tears, the tantrums. It’s all just gone.

The one thing they are left with is being able to say we did our best by him or her. We gave him or her a proper goodbye. They weren’t with us for long, but they were here, they were loved and we have marked that.

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They also had to just accept what they were told by those who knew about such things, that ashes from a baby just weren’t available. Accept it and believe it.

So to have even that taken leaves them with nothing but anger. And that needs expressed in all its terrific fury and its tears because ultimately it can be used for good – to get to the bottom of just why practices at Mortonhall were what they were for so long.

If you watched the BBC documentary on Mortonhall last night then you will know that’s what the parents want. The answer to the question of why were they treated in this way. It’s a question we all must want answered to ensure that babies and their grief-stricken parents never have to go through this painful process again.

While it may be awful for those who have dealt with their loss in a different way and who don’t want to face their grief again to read about what went on at Mortonhall, it’s the responsibility of a local newspaper to hold those in charge of our lives – and our deaths – to account.

And I know that if I had ever felt the trauma of a stillbirth or the death of a baby, I’d be demanding to know just what happened to them once I’d left them in the care of the 
crematorium.

We are all different, and react to loss differently, but for those who do want to know what happened at Mortonhall, who keep on asking the questions, then we are here to help them – and hopefully all affected – to finally find a peaceful end.

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