I'm just here on a rant. I've been up our churchyard today and just over from where we were visiting someone had vandalised three grave stones. Stones that belong to someones family, who still visit regularly by the look of it.

I'm at a loss to think what anyone could get out of this? what is the payoff to this type of behaviour? It's happening a lot around here, it must have taken more than one person to pull the headstone of the base of one of the stones, because the huge metal supporting rods were bent.

I'm furious. I've called the vicar and he's out, I've called the police too.

You know, I only hope at some point in their lives they'll grow up and feel guilty for the rest of their lives for what they've done.

I wish people like this would be haunted by the deceased until they fixed the headstones.

This is a huge problem where i live . not only do they vandalise the graves . throw beer cans all over the place. throw flowers around and take drugs in there . they steal plaques to get money for them from the scrap metal merchants . Its a nightmare .

Recently , due to the graveyards not being kept up poperly by the local council . many headstones were toppled by the council themselves in case they fell over on anyone and injured them thus causing more grief to the relatives of the deceased buried there.

These places seem to be turning into playgrounds and are definitly not a pleasant place to visit. as they should be

Hi Reg........What a shame that this happened, but it seems to be so common now-a-days....I'm assuming it was kids, they're the ones who valdalize cemeteries over here and sometimes get caught......Why they do it, who knows....Lack of respect is a big factor and boredom another.or just thinking that it's fun to do...I would be livid if I went to my parents graves and saw anything out of whack....You did the right thing by calliing the Vicar and the police....This may not be the first time this has happened in this particular cemetary and best they get a handle on it right away....

I've never understood this odd fetish for the buried dead. By definition, they don't care themselves. It's only within the past century or two that this idea of having a permanent place for the dead to reside has originated: go back three hundred years, and after a few years in a plot, your bones were removed and burned or stored in a charnel house, so graveyards weren't the useless vast expanses they are now. They were contained.

Besides, it all seems like refracted egotism to me. If the best you can do is throw a few flowers on the grave, instead of keeping their memory alive, or living the sort of life that honors their wishes, why worry about a hunk of flesh bizarrely kept-fresh-by-harsh-chemicals flesh-to-spare-the-feelings-of-the-living?

--Jaylemurph

I hate it when people disrespect the dead! I truely so. I don't understand when people do that. What's the point of disrespecting a dead person? Did that person ever did anything to you? Probably not. Another thing, the teens today think it's "cool" when you disrespect something or someone else for that matter. God. What's wrong with people today?

My father died very suddenly at what I would say is a young age just over a year ago. Having somewhere 'nice' and a place for people to go and visit and think about him isn't what I would call an odd fetish.
I keep my fathers memory alive myself but its a place for us to focus on days when we feel like it.

And I don't think the main problem is the fact that graves are being vandalised. Its the mentality of people who think they can ruin whats not theirs.

For some people graves are the places they go to feel close to a loved one, a place where alot of money has been invested.

mostly I wonder what kind of ignominious brain lacking subjects attack lifeless objects that have done nothing to them

It's not a matter of throwing on flowers so you don't have to keep their memory alive - I think both is fairly typical. Besides, to most people who lose a loved one, it's really important to be able to "place" them, that's how I feel anyway.

The vicar called me tonight, he's going to call the families of these graves so they don't have a nasty surprise when they visit. I just can't see what anyone would get out of it.

Rockchick, you're right - I'm at a loss to what these people got out of this and they have no empathy as to how these families will feel. They've been desecrating the old stones for a while and now they're moving up to the recently buried part, which people visit regularly.

This is terrible. I totally agree with you. It's so upsetting to see someone have no regard to how others feel.

Boy that was harsh....There's alot more than "throwing" flowers on a grave when you visit the cemetery, or thinkiing your visiting a hunk of flesh, and obviously you don't understand what visiting a cemetery can do for the ones left behind...You sure have a way with words..

Graveyard vanalism is disrespectful!!! And creepy.. I wouldn't dare try that!!

I'm not saying it's not important: it *is* important, just not to the dead person. It's all about the people who are alive and has very little to do with the deceased. Even if you're a devoutly religious person, the soul -- the thing that makes the individual that person -- is no longer tied to the body. Why unnaturally preserve a corpse? Why visit it? Why is the soul more at that spot than anywhere else? Isn't it just prolonging the agony?

I'm not being disrespectful, I just genuinely don't understand this. The dead don't care if people /respect/ them or not. They can't know: that's part of the definition of being dead. I don't understand the pretense of saying "respect the dead" when you really mean "respect my opinion of the dead". There's a critical difference between the two, even if the upshot is the same. (And I'm not saying people ought not to respect other people's opinions.)

When I die, I want to leave my body to medical science, to do something useful with it. I'd hate to think my family wasted thousands of dollars to in a mistaken effort to make me happy or comfortable when I'm past caring or to waste that much money on making themselves feel better in an ultimately self-deceptive manner.

--Jaylemurph

When I first came to UM, it was regarding two local legends in my area that I wanted to talk to other people about. One was Mel's Hole (which is how come I have this unfortunate nick name) and the other was regarding the "13 Steps to Hell" cemetary.

The 13 Steps of Hell, otherwise known as the Maltby cemetary, is a PRIVATE cemetary for a pioneering family in WA state. It was published back in the 80's as one of the 10 most "scary" places in the USA. Back in 1985, I got an interview with the owner of the cemetary about the legend for a local town paper where I was doing an internship for a high school class. This poor place had, had their moseleum damaged beyond repair by vandals, kids partying and doing drugs, historic headstones defaced by partying kids, and the family was devistated.

I'd never heard such a sad story, this gentleman was seriously distraught over the damage done to his ancestors final resting place. Some graves had been so badly damaged, they actually had to move people buried for 100+ years to a public cemetary at great cost. The owner of the cemetary BEGGED me not to print the artical in the paper because they'd been experiencing a lull in the vandalism. I was grateful for the interview, and did NOT hand the article in. I instead ended up doing the Halloween special on Jimmy Hendricks and Bruce Lee's graves, some 20+ miles away.

This man was kind enough to grant me the interview (something I don't think has been done before or since)... and I just couldn't betray him after he pleaded with me; even though he was kind of a cantakerous old coot.

Grave defacing is NOT funny, it hurts a lot of people and costs them a great deal of money.

There's nothing interesting about graveyards, they're just dead people that should be left alone for only their family to honor them.

btw, if you ever read about the 13 Steps to Hell... I can tell you what those steps were... the were 13, stone stairs that originally belonged to a house on the property, that led to a root cellar. So yes, there were 13 steps and they aren't there anymore... they were torn out decades ago back filled and hauled away.

I understand what your saying, but everyone is different as far as showing respect for a loved one who has passed on....When my parents passed away, I was always talking to them, telling them what was going on in our lives, because it made me still feel close to them...I visit the cemetery, leave flowers because this was their final resting place....I have my own interpetation of where their souls are...Although it's a fairly new cemetery i also like to make sure that there is no vandilism...As far as feeling good when I visit them, yes I do, but it's not in a self-deceptive manner....It's the way that I was bought up, and I'm not going to change now.......

Good for you for not printing the article and respecting this man's wishes...We have a cemetery in the city where I was bought up, which has literally gone to pot....It's very old, with two and three caskets buried on top of each other....Headstones, have been knocked down, placques stolen, the whole place is a total mess .... To pay any kind of respect to a loved one is almost impossible...But here's the killer..They had a museleum (spelling) that actually looked like a large shed....Inside there were shelves where the caskets were....The place was valdelized with all the coffins stolen...Caretakers and families have no idea if they were moved or just taken out of random...although I can't imagine that....They now have a hot line for families to call to find out if their loved ones have been re-located...
How horrible...This was going back few years but the hot line is still up......I went online to look at the pictures and what they show is mind boggeling.....I can't imagine the money and time it would take to get this place back in order....I have relatives that were buried there many years ago, and I wouldn't have an inkling as to where they are....Very sad for the families........

I thought vandalising headstones was bizare enough - stealing coffins and corpses That's just hideous.

I remember Charlie Chaplain's coffin was stolen after he was buried, it's just insane.

Don't you know, nothing is sacred nowadays. No gods, no prophets, and certainly no puny graves.

That is so disrespectful. You did the right thing by calling the police and getting others involved....I hope the family of the deceased get help too fix the headstones. Maybe they can get help from donations or something.

That's insane.

I'm sure most people who do this get nothing out of it more than the gratification they feel for destroying something.