A council has removed a wooden cross placed on a grave. It was a temporary cross, placed while the family waited for a proper carved stone. Which, no doubt, would have been immediately laid flat in case it fell on someone. Councils are staffed by the feeble and the dim these days. None of them have worked out the health status of those graveyard tenants but I bet someone, somewhere, is working on a report. They are all non-smokers, you know, all those dead people. They have all stopped smoking, stopped drinking, stopped driving and are losing weight. You just know what that report is going to conclude, don't you?
Apparently the cross does not fit health and safety guidelines. It's two bits of wood fixed together. Who spends time writing guidelines on how that should be done? There's a photo of it in the article. It's not a couple of two-by-fours banged together with nails, it's a well made and polished piece of work.
Ah, but it's not Council work. You can tell that by the way it's nicely made. Not being Council work, it cannot be Council approved.
Health and Safety consider a three-foot plank with another plank fixed to it as dangerous. Even though it's stuck in the ground in plain sight, it's dangerous. Even though it is placed exactly where everyone would expect such a thing to be found, it's dangerous.
The authority said that because the cross stood about 2ft up from the ground it was a health and safety risk.
There is nothing dangerous about it. This is pure Council spite and malice.
Council spokesman Nick Yates said: 'There are a number of regulations we ask people to follow and our staff did discuss with the family what could be placed in the cemetery and we do give relatives written information to this effect.
Yes, the council own the dead now. You cannot decide what sort of memorial you leave for your dead, you can only do as instructed by the council. You cannot place a cross in a place where everyone with half a brain would expect to find a cross because some total moron might think he's in the railway station and trip over it while running for a train. Those Council staff could not even lay it flat on the grave. They took it away and dumped it in an alley.
'Our staff try to deal with all situations in a sensitive way.'
No, they don't. Ripping out a cross from a grave and dumping it in a back alley is not, even by my uber-cynical standards, 'sensitive'. It is spiteful and cruel and unnecessary. It wasn't even meant to be permanent and your staff knew it. It didn't fit with Council standardisation and that comes way higher on your staff's priority list than any concern for the relatives of the deceased.
If you did that to one of my family, Nick Yates, you would find that cross somewhere you wouldn't expect to find such a thing and believe me, it would sting for a long time.
I hope Health and Safety would fine you for having it there, too.
11 comments:
Pardon me for being a bit too sensible about this, but surely anything sticking up two feet or more above ground level is more visible (and therefore less dangerous) than something much less visible, at, say, trip-wire height which, presumably, they would have left alone? Bring on those public-service cuts, I say!
But surely wood rots? Think of all the mould and fungus and spores that the Council staff would be exposed to.
And another thing, crosses are obviously offensive to everyone except extremist 'christians' and the council has a Duty Of Care for passing Islamists not to be offended.
Added a few ^ ticks on the Mails comments section.
Anon - there is a lot that can be cut and they won't see it coming. If it comes.
A lot of these idiot councils are Tory and Lib Dem controlled.
Banned - it wouldn't surprise me to find that the 'cross' was deemed offensive in a Christian graveyard. Common sense is surgically removed from all Council employees on their first day.
I know it's too much to hope for, but in a sensible world anyone found desecrating graves in this way in the course of their employment would be sacked on the spot for gross misconduct.
It can't happen because they are doing precisely what they are employed to do and no misconduct is involved. There's a rule, you see, it's on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. It's a one-size-fits-all rule. His job is to apply the rule and tick a box saying he's done so.
It is simply unforgivable that the country has slipped into this state.
"Who spends time writing guidelines on how that should be done? "
Someone who clearly doesn't have enough real work to do, and whom the council can therefore lose easily, perhaps?
But no. It'll be cuts in the dustbin service or the roads repair unit instead.
The council officials are right in a way you know.
Being as thick as they demonstrably are the cross obviously does pose a health and safety risk to certain council employees.
The solution, however, isn't to remove the cross, but to remove the thicko council employees from their jobs and thus eliminate the risk.
If it's been dumped in an alley with any luck a yob fleeing from his SOC will trip over it. God works in mysterious ways...
Isn't it ironic that a government which legislated on respect (and just how stupid do you have to be to think you can do that) fostered a society in which its public servants treated everyone with none?
Jay
Feeble and dim? Yes, but vindictive as all getout as well.
Wot TFB said, in spades.
In my area, as in many others, only stone crosses and memorials are permitted.
Rather like the rule that all taxis now have to be enormous mini-bus-type things, I suspect this to be the result of lobbying by the monumental masons' union or guild.
Unsurprisingly, your stone memorial cannot just be anything - it has to be an "approved" pattern, made (at - surprise - vast expense) by one of the very few "approved" contractors.
All of whom, no doubt, are cousins or brothers-in-law of the relevant officials.
The whole thing stinks.
Privatise the lot of them.
This is really interesting take on the concept. I never thought of it that way. I came across this site recently which I think it will be a great use of new ideas and informations.
It's the fact the cross reminds people of Christ and of God that is the "danger" to the earth-bound council and government rulers in charge. It's always been the "danger" to them, that people might see the masks drop and the government exposed, naked, for the satan it represents and satan's works the government does. The current governments work to do things politically-correct, in accord with earth-bound rule, not morally-correct, in accord with heaven-bound rule, which would force them to accept the rights, liberties and freedoms of ALL people, not just those in line with the one-party-line. And there-in lies the "danger" of crosses, of any size, remaining visible to the still living, viewing public eye. People needn't so much wake up to Christ as many aren't Christian. But surely if people woke up to the idea of moral-correctness instead of showing allegiance to political-correctness, then a lot of the government and quango mess created this last decade and a half would dissipate in a flash, like smoke rising to the sky, all burned up and gone. We are enslaved to our own tyranny of our minds and having crosses be visible is a "danger" that "threatens" that stability which a one-party ruler requires, to keep the mask firmly in place, no hint of immorality, of liberty stealing, to show through. Anyhow, images of crosses representing the ultimate cruelty done to someone rebellious who stood up to the establishment, but in a loving and self-sacrificial way, might frighten the children or worse yet, give them the "wrong idea" about what is important in this world, which is obeying political rule, of the one-party.
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