‘I’m so grateful to people’
Residents lay flowers at memorial bench as tragic boy’s mum couldn’t visit in lockdown
A mum from Leeds who was unable to visit her son’s memorial bench on the 15th anniversary of his death has thanked Scarborough residents for laying flowers there.
Julie Spence, from Leeds, visits Scarborough every year for the anniversary of her eightyear-old son Callum Lister’s death.
After appealing on a social media group for someone to sit on the bench on Wednesday of last week, Julie said she was “overwhelmed” by the hundreds of messages she received.
Throughout the day many people walked past the bench, sat down for a while, left flowers, messages and teddy bears and shared pictures and videos with Julie on social media.
Her original post attracted more than 360 comments.
“My request was just for someone to sit on the bench for a while,” Julie said. “But the response was amazing, one person put flowers there and it just escalated.
“All day people have been messaging me, there are so many lovely people in mine and my son’s favourite place.
“The day itself is hard anyway, as you can imagine, and to not be able to go visit Callum’s favourite place on his anniversary was even more heartbreaking.”
In usual circumstances Julie would visit the cemetery in Leeds with family and then get the train to Scarborough to visit the bench and sit on the beach. However, although lockdown travel restrictions were eased, people are still being advised not to use public transport, so Julie and her family couldn’t make the trip.
Callum was hit by a vehicle on May 12 2005 and died in hospital the following day.
As Scarborough had been his favourite place, and he had spent his last holiday here the October before his death, the family chose the town as the place for a memorial bench.
Julie originally wanted the bench to be near the seafront but was told there wasn’t
enough space so instead chose Peasholm Park.