Publication: USA Today
Author: Rachel Leamon
Publish Date: October 29, 2009
Article Excerpt:
So you think London, population 8 million, is crowded with the living?
There are many millions more under the soil of a city that has been inhabited for 2,000 years. And London is rapidly running out of places to put them.
Now the city’s largest cemetery is trying to persuade Londoners to share a grave with a stranger.
“A lot of people say, ‘I’m not putting my Dad in a secondhand grave,”‘ said Gary Burks, superintendent and registrar of the City of London Cemetery, final resting place of close to 1 million Londoners. “You have to deal with that mindset.”
The problem is a very British one. Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman’s tomb, like his home, is his castle.
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