Unsung heroes are doing a fantastic job

SO many times do we hear people complain about all and everything. I would like, if I may, through the medium of your excellent Grimsby Telegraph, to say a very big thank you to four really special people – Sam, Scott Danny and Arran, from North East Lincolnshire Council’s Scartho Road cemetery offices. I’m from a very old Grimsby family - my granddad was a trawler skipper sailing from Grimsby Docks for many years, and captain of a minesweeper sailing from Grimsby during the war.

He was a very brave man willing to take the risk of losing his life for his beloved town.

We have many family members interred in both Scartho Road and Cleethorpes cemeteries, but for some reason, although we knew the number of grandad’s plot and visited what we thought was his final resting place periodically, we never got round to marking it with a fitting identity stone.

We’re all getting on a bit now, and it became increasingly important to us, especially my lovely mum, that we gave grandad a fitting and deserved identity stone on his grave.

For some unknown reason, before we started filling in forms and looking at stones, something didn’t feel quite right to me.

I rang the cemetery office number to ask for confirmation of the grave plot number.

I spoke to Sam, who was absolutely brilliant. Nothing was too much trouble for her, and so lovely. She arranged for us to meet Danny the following day at what we thought was grandad’s plot. Danny was waiting for us nowhere near the grass plot we had taken flowers to and visited, and showed us where my grandad lay.

Emotion ran fairly high, Danny was brilliant, so kind and helpful, and we stayed with granddad a while. We then met Scott, again such a kind and helpful man. These people really are unsung heroes, they do a fantastic job under difficult and fairly emotional circumstances, and deserve a very big thank you.

North East Lincolnshire Council couldn’t have better, more splendid staff working in this capacity. We’re so pleased we found grandad. Thank you to all of them.