Hundreds mourn baby with no name
Strangers’ tears for six-week-old boy found dead by a railway line…but was his mother in the crowd?
CLAD in black, they gathered in their hundreds to say farewell to a child they didn’t even know.
Scores of mourners lined the graveside to say a final goodbye to a six-week-old boy whose body was found on an old railway path almost two years ago.
Individuals with no connection to the tragic tot turned up to make sure he was buried surrounded with love.
As one of them put it, they were his family now. And as the tiny white casket was lowered into the ground at Seafield Cemetery in Edinburgh, tears were shed among the crowd who gave up their own time to be there.
Mystery still surrounds the tragic infant, who appeared to have been healthy and well fed during his short life. Police have been trying to identify him ever since – but so far without success. There were suspicions the child’s mother may even have attended the service – and officers handed out leaflets after the burial asking for information to identify both her and the child.
The plaque on the tiny white coffin read simply ‘Known to God, precious little angel’.
Inside the casket, the baby’s remains had been placed in a pouch fashioned from a wedding dress by Margaret Halliday, 65, who called it a ‘pocket of love’.
Attached to it, she said, was a tiny brooch in the shape of a wing – to help the child fly to heaven.
Leading the service in the cemetery, not far from the spot where the baby was discovered, the Rev Erica Wishart, said: ‘This is the kind of tragedy that surely touches everyone who hears about it. All of us who gather here today are grieving.
‘We represent everyone in this community and beyond who feels deep sadness that this tiny baby is never going to have the chance to grow up and live his life.’
She added: ‘We are here to say goodbye to this wee one, with the dignity and respect he deserves. We are here to mourn the life that could have been.’ As she spoke, many of those gathered at the graveside dissolved into tears. Some of them were mothers who, like Miss Halliday, had lost a child in pregnancy or early infancy.
The vast majority of those who gathered in the cemetery just wanted to be there to ensure the baby was not alone, not abandoned now, as he had been in life.
Mother of three Deborah Mullen, 47, from Leith, said: ‘I think anybody who is a mother would be moved. Nine months a baby grows inside you.’
By the funeral’s end, a carpet of flowers and teddy bears covered the grave. ‘One said: ‘The people of Leith will be your family.’