A haven of peace with 27,500 people in it
IT’S not just cuckoos making their presence felt at this time of year; mowers and strimmers are being revved up in council cemeteries and parks for the first time.
A Swansea Council cemetery which to some people feels like a park has said goodbye to the winter maintenance schedule and is kicking off seven months of spring and summer work.
Oystermouth Cemetery would have looked very different compared to now when the first body was committed on April 3, 1883, the year of the cataclysmic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia.
The 27-acre site used to be farmland and is now the resting place for around 27,500 people in some 12,500 graves.
Set on different levels and mixing grand memorials with simple headstones and plaques, the cemetery is a haven for wildlife and has expansive views across Swansea Bay as well as wooded nooks and crannies.
In one area on a sunny Sunday, the grandparents of a young soldier who lost his life in Afghanistan in 2010 are tending to his grave and checking the nearby bench in his memory.
They reckon it needs a fresh coat of varnish.
Supervising the cemetery is council employee Andy Parsons, who has worked there for 26 years and lived at the lodge at the entrance for 20 of those.
“The longer you do it, the more personal it becomes,” says Mr Parsons.
He explains that over the years he has befriended strangers in sad circumstances, and in some cases gone on to supervise their burial.
“I don’t like it when I know who the person is but I’m not here,” he says.
A colleague will always deputise in Mr Parsons’s absence to ensure the burial runs smoothly.
Planks overlaid with grass matting are placed at the graveside, and Mr Parsons or a colleague will tactfully check that the name plate on the coffin matches the name on the burial order.
“With a funeral, it’s got to be right first time,” he says.
The earth backfilled in a grave, he says, will resettle at least three times. Cemetery maintenance staff will top up the soil, and after six months add a layer of sand and then turf.
‘‘
The newly-laid turf is then added to the cemetery’s programme of maintenance.
Mr Parsons says it takes the six-strong maintenance team four days to mow and strim Oystermouth Cemetery, and that’s without any interruptions. They also look after other council-owned areas in the surrounding Mumbles area.
Feedback from the public, he says, is complimentary. He says: “The biggest thing is when people say, ‘It feels more like a park, not a cemetery.’ There are many different types of habitat and wildlife running around here.
“The more houses that are built, the more of a nature reserve you become.”
There are three entrances for walkers, and dogs on leads are allowed.
Mr Parsons says more people have been strolling around since the first Covid lockdown came into force last March.
The first wave of coronavirus was a disorientating time for parks staff, just like the rest of us.
“We had to keep staff available to bury and cremate people; nobody knew,” says Andy, referring to a worst-case scenario which fortunately didn’t materialise.
“We had to prioritise the jobs people did. We could then slowly get back to normality.”
Mr Parsons says the cemetery has 30 to 40 years’ worth of space left. More and more people are choosing to be cremated these days, or have what are termed natural burials in nature reserves, meadows or woodland.
In the early days of Oystermouth Cemetery, you had to live in the parish to be interred there. That is not the case now.
You can’t pre-purchase a grave, but when one is allocated, technically speaking you purchase an exclusive right of burial for 99 years.
When autumn shadows lengthen, maintenance staff mow, strim and weed for the final time and then switch to re-turfing, edging pathways, and clearing ivy and other growth.
Areas of wildflowers and the woodland burial section require little intervention, while beds near the entrance are turned over twice for spring and summer planting, with the surrounding lawn areas given close attention.
Mr Parsons says Christmas, Easter and Mother’s Day are popular visiting times for relatives, so it’s important the cemetery is looking good.
The council has seven cemeteries, with Danygraig in Port Tennant the oldest.
Burials have a very different feeling, says Mr Parsons, depending on the age of the deceased.
If relatives wish to take over from funeral director pallbearers and lower a coffin into a grave, Mr Parsons says he will offer to support and guide the process.
He says it’s a privilege to live at the site, and he is clearly a well-known face.
Members of the public will stop to chat if they spot him in his garden on a day off.
“People I now class as friends I met in totally the wrong circumstances,” he says.
The biggest thing is when people say, ‘It feels more like a park, not a cemetery’ - Cemetery supervisor Andy Parsons