Shebbear

Pte Robert Mill is at home for a well-earned month’s rest, after four years very active service. He was in the NRDY two years before the outbreak of war, and was told off with the troops sent to the Dardenelles, sharing the troubles of Suvla Bay. From there he went to Egypt, and was linked up with the Palestine Expedition, but has latterly been serving in France.

Writing in the local magazine, the Rev T E Fox, Vicar, says: “There is a custom which you do not find in neighbouring parishes of burying the dead in brick graves. If people thought they would never no anything so silly. The boards on the top rot, then falls the soil, leaving an enormous cavity at the top. Again, the water runs in, and cannot get away, so much that the coffin is in water. We had a case lately, of a man who wished to be buried in his wife’s grave. Not a particle of the body or coffin was to be found, but simply a tank of water. It is a silly custom, and shows no respect for the dead. It is simply done because people will say how stingy they are towards the dead. We have got rid of the custom of not ringing the bells when someone is dead; we are fast abandoning the custom of mourners remaining seated with faces covered with a rag – let us get rid of brick graves like we have artificial wreaths”

Gazette article dated 17 September 1918