BROMLEY COMMON: Great uncle memorial campaign success (From This Is Local London)

BROMLEY COMMON: Great uncle memorial campaign success

11:50am Sunday 7th February 2010 in

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A CARING campaigner is celebrating after a successful three-year fight to clean up her great uncle’s war memorial.

In 2007, Sheila Dartnell from Bromley Common began her battle to persuade local authority bosses to give Stockwell war memorial a spruce-up when she found her great uncle’s name, Christopher Dartnell, on the stone pillar.

The 58-year-old from Union Road also noticed some of the 565 names on the memorial were becoming worn away and the important landmark was becoming run down.

Ms Dartnell, who has lived in Bromley borough for 36 years, said: “Once those names are worn away there will be no public record of them.

“They are so much more than just names.

“This is part of our heritage. Nobody relishes war but it is important to remember those who lost their lives.”

The legal secretary says she spent months talking to Lambeth Council, the London Assembly, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and War Memorials Trust in her quest for action.

Now Lambeth Council has confirmed it plans to spend around £30,000 cleaning up the memorial and its gardens later this year.

Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry

Christopher Dartnell served in the First World War as a lance corporal in the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry Regiment, 6th Battalion, and died in action in 1917, aged 21.

“I’m very happy about the decision to clean up the memorial,” Ms Dartnell said.

“There is no law in place saying that this memorial has to be looked after so I am not resting on my laurels.

“I will keep my eye on it now.”

Last summer, other boroughs were urged to follow Bromley’s example when it comes to caring for war memorials.

A London Assembly report praised Bromley Council for having an inventory of all the 366 memorials in the borough.

Each entry in the register shows the location, a short history, names of the fallen and photographs.