Going the extra mile

In July 2019, after 10 years of working for local authorities as Assistant Manager / Manager of Bereavement Services I started working at St Georges NHS Foundation Trust as the Trust’s Bereavement Services Manager.

In December 2020 I received a letter, via our health records scanning team, from a couple whose baby had sadly died in 1967, aged 2 days old at St Georges. Their letter was requesting information regarding their baby's death and final resting place.

I immediately made contact with the couple and explained who I was and that I would try my best to find the information for them. I was honest with them and explained that there was a possibility that I wouldn't be able to find their son's final resting place.

They told me that over the years they had made several attempts to find out what had happened to their son as at the time of his death they had no involvement in deciding what would happen to him. But whenever they had previously contacted St Georges NHS Trust, they were told that there was no record of the mother on the system. This was probably because it was so long ago that the records would have been archived.

As you can imagine not knowing what happened to their baby was very distressing for them. I reassured them that practices have changed and parents are now able to make decisions about what happens to their babies.

With their letter they had included copies of their son's birth and death certificates. All deaths at St George’s hospital come under Wandsworth registry office, so I immediately contacted Wandsworth registrars to see if they had any information regarding the baby's cremation or burial, but unfortunately their records did not go back that far.

I then contacted the Trusts local cemeteries and crematoria managed by Wandsworth, Lambeth and Merton Councils. I gave them all the information I had but none of them had any record of a burial or cremation for the baby.

I decided to contact our mortuary manager who was able to arrange access to the archived mortuary registers. We found the mortuary release register for 1967 - I checked each entry following the baby’s date of death and found the entry that showed that the baby had been collected on 9th June 1967 by a local funeral director.

Because of the handwriting it was hard to read the name / signature of the funeral director, but it clearly said that they were based in Upper Tooting. As soon as I got back to my office, I Googled funeral directors in Upper Tooting but nothing came up that looked similar to the name. I called some of our local long established funeral directors and after some lengthy discussions one was able to confirm the name of the funeral director who had collected the baby. But, unfortunately, the independent funeral director who collected the baby had ceased trading many years ago so I was unable to contact them to find out where they had taken the baby.

I got back in touch with the cemeteries and crematoria and asked them to search their registers for any bookings under the name of the funeral director that had collected the baby but again nothing was found.

I kept the parents updated and was able to reassure them that their son had been collected by a reputable funeral director and would have been given a dignified burial or cremation.

I couldn’t give up looking for him so in March 2021, in a last ditch attempt, I contacted Streatham Park Cemetery in Streatham Vale. If I’m honest I wasn’t sure that they would be able to help but it was worth a try.

After a couple of weeks and one gentle reminder from me they emailed me to say they had checked their records and that the baby had been buried in a public grave in their cemetery.

I was delighted to receive the email from the cemetery and I immediately called the parents. The phone call was quite emotional. I explained that their son was buried with three other babies, which I'm hoping has provided them with some comfort knowing that their baby was not alone.

I sent them details of the burial and a copy of the cemetery map and section.

Although they now live in Norfolk and are in their eighties, they are hoping to visit their son's grave, something they would never have had the opportunity to do.

A few weeks later they wrote to me thanking me for all my help. They said that they had almost given up hope of finding their son after all these years and that they are now reassured of his proper and respectful burial.

Having worked within the bereavement sector for many