Team Rubicon volunteers help maintain UK war graves

Members of Team Rubicon UK were among the latest people to join the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s new volunteer scheme. The Eyes On, Hands On project seeks to build a nationwide army of people who can help CWGC to ensure the war dead buried in the UK are never forgotten.

At a training day in the historic setting of Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, members of Team Rubicon UK used their down time to learn how to identify Commonwealth war graves and check their condition. Team Rubicon is a disaster Relief agency based in Wiltshire which includes ex-forces members. Across the UK the Commission is responsible for war graves in more than 12,000 locations, creating a constant challenge in maintaining each and every headstone.

Andy Tysoe, CWGC Volunteer Co-ordinator for the South-West, said: “It was great to be joined by volunteers from Team Rubicon UK and the Bristol area, including some from the Bristol Masons Lodge, to receive their Eyes On, Hands On training and help with cleaning the headstones in Arnos Vale. This project is all about getting people to help us care for the war dead buried in the UK. Everyone who took part was incredibly keen to do just that.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response from the public so far for this project. It’s a delight and great fun to meet people who are willing to give a little of their time to make sure men and women who did so much for all of us are not forgotten.”

Following its launch in June, Eyes On, Hands On has seen more than 1,000 volunteers sign up to help CWGC in the UK. Once they have completed their training, groups of volunteers will be assigned to a number of churchyards and burial grounds in their local area, where they will visit, inspect and if required, conduct minor cleaning works to headstones.

The information they capture then gets fed into a national database which helps direct Commission resources more efficiently. Damaged headstones or more specialist work will be picked up by CWGC staff but if volunteers notice small amounts of cleaning or trimming of vegetation is needed between staff inspections, they will undertake these minor works themselves.

Applicants in the first two pilot regions, south-west and eastern England, will be contacted once a training session becomes available in their area. The project will roll out to the rest of the UK in spring 2020. Eyes On, Hands On has been made possible thanks to a generous donation by Annington.

Parts of Arnos Vale Cemetery had fallen into disrepair during the 80s and 90s before the Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust took over the site following a local campaign. Work then began to repair damage and improve access to war graves that had become overgrown.

CWGC has worked closely with the Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust since then and undertaken various projects including the complete restoration of the Soldiers’ Corner plot at the cemetery entrance, which was unveiled in December 2018. The graves being cleared and cleaned by CWGC and Eyes On, Hands On volunteers last weekend sat in a particularly overgrown plot which has required more focussed attention.