I was in the Army with Steve Davies who is the Military Grave Restorer, and after seeing the work he does, see his website at: https://www.veteransfoundation.org.uk/stories/grant-stories/steve-davies-grant-sep-22/ I was inspired to set up an Oxfordshire Group. When I unfortunately lost my mother and was at the church to arrange the funeral, I asked the Vicar if he had any military graves, to which he said yes, and showed me 15 Crimean crosses that were covered with weed.
During the hard gardening task of cleaning these, we came across syringes, old bottles and even an animal skull, but the crosses can now be seen and read, and we will be returning to make sure this doesn’t happen again. You might recognise residents Jules and Denise who are veterans and help veteran’s organisations all over the country.
Our second task was at Spring Road Cemetery where I was joined by the Military Grave Restorer Steve along with other veterans including Terry. We were shown how to clean Marble graves and cleaned 6 graves including two old Lord Majors of Oxford. We use washing up liquid and water to scrub the lichen off, then we use an environmentally friendly chemical to get the rest off, leaving them clean, and then spray them to keep them from getting dirty again for a while.
All the labour is voluntary - we do have a Just Giving page to help pay for tools and chemicals used, so if anyone would like to donate towards this please see this link:
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