Closure of cemetery very hard for family

WE are writing to you as it is with some concern that we have just heard from our son today that Redburn Cemetery has been closed by Belfast City Council.

We have to ask: who made this decision? It is not as if there are scores of people working on site there and, presumably, if there is to be a funeral, someone will have to open it anyway.

Our son has been living in Belfast now for 18 years and, after getting married 10 years ago, he and our daughter-in-law were so unlucky to lose their first-born, our darling little grand-daughter, at 18 months.

She had underlying problems from birth, but was the most delightful little girl, who died after surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She has been gone since April 2013 and, amid all going on now, to have been able to visit her at Redburn later this month would have been so important, as every visit always is.

On our visits to Belfast, we always go and see her and I have to say that we have never encountered a large number of people there. Why, therefore, has this closure been made?

It seems a panic reaction and one which is denying locals from visiting their loved ones’s resting places.

Our family has just had to restrict their other daughter’s birthday celebrations; to be denied the opportunity to visit their older daughter seems extremely cruel. As our son says: “Imagine if we had just lost her.”

We hope it will not be too long before we can be in Belfast again to visit the family — all the family.

MARY AND JEREMY HEATH Northampton