So Aberdeen City Council is doubling down on its rules when it comes to what should and shouldn’t be left around the city’s statues and memorials.
While flowers will be deemed okay for open spaces and large memorials, the humble memorial bench has its own regulations.
No plastic, not even fresh floral tributes. Such tokens will be collected and binned.
I can’t speak for how these things impact larger statues but when it comes to memorial benches I’m fairly confident I have a stronger connection than most.
A Place to Remember
Over the last 18 months, I’ve been telling some of the hidden tales behind Aberdeen’s many benches. I’ve pounded the Esplanade, scoured parks and meandered around the Don and the Dee reading the plaques, and uncovering some heartwarming and gut-wrenching stories.
On any given day I’ll come across a bench with flowers on it.
Sometimes it’s an artificial arrangement cable-tied to the structure, but more often than not I see real flowers and foliage placed on one side of the seat.
One of the arguments for legislating against leaving such tributes is that it could prohibit people from using the benches. I suppose that could be the case if the entire seating area is covered, however, I’m yet to see such a thing.
What I do see time and again, is the marked disparity between benches treated lovingly adorned by flowers or an odd card and those that receive no such TLC.
Deterrent to vandalism
There’s a seat next to the Brig O’Balgownie that I’m currently researching. It sits amidst a dozen makeshift memorial plaques on trees.
Beside each of those, there’s a myriad of laminated cards, trinkets, fairy memorabilia, some silk flowers that have seen better days and every now and again a fresh bouquet. I’m deliberately not sharing a photo because I would hate them to be taken away.
But FYI – these are specifically the kinds of ad hoc, permissionless epitaphs which will also be removed. However, by stark comparison, the bench – and the people it’s there to memorialise – is going to ruin.
Sure, it’s a wooden bench and many of the seats around the city are now being replaced by composite benches in dark colours to discourage such treatment and decay, but my point is this: for as long as families leave flowers, someone is looking after that bench.
And for as long as floral tributes are placed there – a universal sign that someone special is worthy of being remembered – it dissuades graffiti.
We need more gestures of love, not less
I have to be honest, I feel sad that it’s someone’s job to remove fresh flowers from these treasured places. Just the other day I walked past Ronnie’s bench where a bunch of wild flowers had been placed.
Since writing about Ronnie I’ve become friends with his wife, Eleanor. Most days I take my dog past ‘Ronnie’ and I gotta tell you, it wouldn’t be unknown for me to blether away like Ronnie’s sitting there himself.
Seeing flowers gave me pause for reflection. A special anniversary no doubt. A symbol of love. And my goodness, we need more not less of them.
Sitting amidst memories
And I think this is where we need to stop for a moment. See, these aren’t solely there to provide seating. They’re there to evoke memories. They’re there because somebody somewhere still wants there to be a place for their granda, or their granny, their mum or their dad, and even their kids to sit beside them.
Gravestones are wonderful, but I never once went to a cemetery with my Papa. I did, however, sit with him on a bench in Millport, watching the Waverly chug down the Clyde. If I sit there I don’t sit alone. The same will be true all around this Granite City of ours.
The spot where a dad and son would go fishing. That place where a mum went pregnant, but then lost her baby. That view that they returned to every year on their holidays. The last place a father met his son.
These aren’t just places to park our behinds, they are immersive memorials inviting us to sit down, to read the plaque, to think, maybe even pray for the family mentioned.
Cashing in on grief?
If the seats are there as purely a solution to weary legs, are we not exploiting the bereaved? These things aren’t free. It can cost hundreds – sometimes thousands – to place a bench or add a plaque. So we’ll take their money because it’s a memorial, but then not let them use it as such?
I understand a drive to rid the city, and the wider world, of single-use and disposable plastic. I’m all on board for rubbish being taken away. But if the biggest issue we face is a few withered leaves gracing the – let’s be honest – usually haar-covered memorial seats of Aberdeen, we’re doing no’ bad.
As more and more people opt for cremation, and fewer places become available for burials, I suspect, I hope, we’ll see a surge in creativity when it comes to keeping the memories of our loved ones alive.
Maybe the answer is to plan for such a thing and not prohibit it.
If shopping trolleys can have a flower compartment why can’t a memorial bench?
Lindsay Bruce is an obituary writer for the Press and Journal and Evening Express
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