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Rest in peace, but stay in line

5/6/2025

2 Comments

 
Picture
Wonthaggi cemetery: "Honouring and celebrating life”. Photos: Julie Paterson
By Catherine Watson

I'VE always loved the Wonthaggi cemetery, with footy flags adorning headstones, concrete angels, and roos grazing between the graves in the last rays of the day. A homely and cheerful place to contemplate mortality. 

But things are changing since Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust took over the cemetery in February.


The council has paid the trust (a public entity) $4 million to maintain Wonthaggi and San Remo cemeteries in perpetuity. The understanding is that the council will save money and the community will get a more professional service. 
That means we're now being dragged into line with all the other cemeteries the trust runs. 

A new corporate vibe starts with the mission statement at the entrance. No gloomy words about death. That's a downer! Now the Wonthaggi cemetery is all about “Honouring and celebrating life”. There’s even a QR code.

The new vibe continues with an information board containing pictures of flowers, trees, chairs, fairy lights, hamburgers, and bottles of wine.

​
Not, as it first appears, an invitation to stop for a picnic in this lovely spot but symbols of all the things that are now PROHIBITED in our own cemetery. 

Our forebears would be turning in their graves. ​

No alcohol or cigarettes! No bushes, trees, vegetables or other plantings! No sharp things! No broken things! No chairs! No food! No artificial flowers!

​​Southern Metropolitan, you have got to be joking. There are artificial flowers here that have survived two world wars and will be here when the cemetery has sea views.
As for sharp bits, half the headstones and graves are broken, and that's as it should be. Never mind mission statements, read Shelley's great poem and you'll get the gist of graveyards. ​All things decay, even concrete.
​

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Picture
Below the pictures of what we can't do, more orders. “Approved adornments MUST remain within the boundaries of the headstone or monument.”

What “approved adornments”? You’ve outlawed everything. 

​
I have buyer’s remorse. Seems like we bought the plot but forgot to read the fine print first. 

Fortunately, it seems that no one is taking a blind bit of notice.
​Now, if we can just get the roos to come back …
2 Comments
Margaret Lee
9/6/2025 04:06:19 pm

Well spoken Catherine.

Our Cemeteries are Sacred Ground, the ground on which our forbears lie. The tributes we take to share with them are precious belonging to them or their future descendants, honouring and cherishing memories.

Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust keep your hands off our memories and all that means to the families that visit this special place.
In the modern era Death is not honoured but shoved out of sight as soon as a funeral is over.

Thank goodness rules were made to be broken!!

Reply
Mark Robertson
10/6/2025 11:21:58 am

Let's train the roos to carry posies of flowers around the graves in their pouches, sharing the respect for all our resting residents. Let's hope the responsible authorities understand the concept of sensible compromise.

Reply



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