Maintain cemetery

OH NO. How heartbreaking was the photo of Mary Roache’s grave in a recent The Way We Were. To see how beautiful the plot was originally and to see how the ravishes of time have destroyed that beauty is so, so sad.

Unfortunately the grave of Mary Roache is not the only sad visual experience of someone visiting the Toowoomba and Drayton Cemetery.

I have written about this before. Families are bereaved and want to honour their loved ones with – what they think – will be an ever-lasting memorial. Is the passing of time to blame for the deterioration or is it shoddy workmanship in the beginning. One will never know.

The Toowoomba and Drayton Cemetery is the resting place of all those who went before us to help make Toowoomba and her surrounds the vibrant and liveable city it is today.

Surely we owe these people the respect of repairing their memorials to their original appearance.

Surely it is not too much to ask for the TRC and the management of the cemetery to establish a committee of tradesmen to repair these sites as need be? After all, the deceased person or their family purchased the plot. Surely the maintenance of the cemetery extends further than just the mowing of the grass.

Fortunately for my own family, the graves of our dearly departed have withstood the ravishes of time. Shame on TRC and the Toowoomba and Drayton Cemetery for allowing this to happen. — JNETTE HARVEY, Rangeville