Babies buried in mass graves will finally be treated with the dignity they deserve

Babies buried in mass graves will finally be treated with the dignity they deserved with a lasting memorial.

Remembrance plinths and benches will be set up in honour of the almost 300 stillborn children and early deaths found in a mass grave in Royton earlier this year. 

Oldham council is due to start work on seven memorial sites – one at each of the borough’s cemeteries – to give relatives affected by the ‘grisly’ practice a space to honour their loved ones. 

Up until the late 1980s, parents whose babies were tragically stillborn or passed away within days of birth were often told their children would be buried with a ‘nice person’ in an adult grave. 

But decades later, many parents and siblings are now discovering babies were instead packed into cardboard coffins and buried in unmarked communal graves.

It took Royton resident Amanda, 62, decades to track down where her twin brothers were buried.

When she found them in the mass grave, she said it was ‘a shock’ – but also a ‘relief’. 

Her parents never got to find out where their lost babies lay. 

“They would have walked through Royton Cemetery so many times never knowing that their babies were there,” Amanda told LBC radio, fighting back tears. 

Anne and Peter Ryan, former Oldham residents, spent 55 years in the dark about the whereabouts of their baby Joyce.

Their daughter, who lived for two days, is buried at another communal grave in Greenacres. 

“At the end of day it’s your baby, your little girl,” Anne said.

“It doesn’t matter if she’d been stillborn or if she lived, she was a human being.”

The Ryans said it was important to have somewhere to ‘pay your respects, have a little word, grieve’. 

Oldham council agreed to do just that at a council meeting in September.

After confidential talks with affected relatives, they’ve decided to erect memorial stones inscribed with a ‘poignant verse’ to remember the ‘little children who never got to grow’. 

The council has also launched a hotline for relatives in need of support – on 0161 770 7777 (option 2).

And cemeteries will be suspending charges set by the government for those requesting death certificates for those buried in an unmarked communal grave. 

Anyone who has been charged in the past twelve months can receive a refund by contacting the council Registrars service. 

Oldham is likely to be the first of many councils to take this step, as data has revealed the mass grave is just one of thousands across England.

More than 89,000 babies are buried in communal graves across the country, according to an FOI sent out to 314 local authorities.

---

Do you have a story for us? Want to tell us about something going on in and around Oldham? Let us know by emailing news@oldham-chronicle.co.uk , calling our Oldham-based newsroom on 0161 633 2121 , tweeting us @oldhamchronicle or messaging us through our Facebook page. All contact will be treated in confidence.