More people may be eternally remembered in their own community thanks to Wollongong City Council recently advertising new ash memorial spaces at Scarborough Cemetery.
“Since Council announced the sale of new sites at the Scarborough Cemetery on the 1 July 2024, we have received an extraordinary level of interest,” a council spokesperson told the Flame on July 22.
“Of the 450 new sites available, Council has received approximately 150 reservations.”
Prue Watson, the coordinator of Friends of Cemetery group, says: “I think it’s incredibly important that you are able to be buried in the place where you grew up or lived …
“There’s that connection of life and death – death is a part of life.”
It’s not simply the views that make owning a piece of this prime oceanfront property so popular. Scarborough Cemetery is neat and tranquil, evidence of a much-loved community asset. This is largely thanks to decades of work by volunteers, who’ve gathered wind-blown plastic flowers, planted a scented garden and protected the native kangaroo grass on the headland over the sea.
Prue says: “It was just a litter patch to begin with. Now it’s not only our group, but anyone who walks through it picks up litter. So, because it’s looked after, it continues to be looked after by the community as well as the group.”
Prue was one of the founding Friends, who first met in 2010.
“We felt the cemetery was just not being taken care of,” she says. “It was a weed patch.
“It was a small group of about 12 of us who got it going. We decided to have a garden of remembrance at the entrance. So we built that garden, the scented garden at the entrance of the cemetery.”
As well as planting the traditional rosemary for remembrance, plus gardenias, lavender and murraya in the scented garden, volunteers have also planted native plants along the cemetery’s edge on Lawrence Hargrave Drive.
“The headland was also kangaroo grass, the native endangered species of grass. We wanted it protected and they were mowing it.”
It took the group 18 months of negotiating with council to get permission to work in the historic cemetery, where graves date from the 1890s.
Today, Prue has nothing but praise for council and John Chilby, who liaised with the group at the time. She also recommends council’s Rise and Shine department. “They run the litter programs, the clean up programs, and their philosophy is if you keep a place clean, it’ll stay clean. That’s where we got that idea from and we’ve run a number of Rise and Shines, just clearing up the area.”
These days the Friends meet less frequently.
“We have a fairly big group now, but we don’t need to work as often,” Prue says. “We just keep it under control. It gets a lot of litter because the plastic flowers blow off the cemetery.
“We also keep in touch with the council about vandalism, which now almost never happens, but it was common. The graves were desecrated earlier.”
At 80, Prue is a remarkable example of the generous spirit of the community. She has lived in the area for 30 years and also volunteered with Wombarra Creek Bush Care.
In her seaside suburb, thanks for the volunteers come in a typically informal fashion.
“Everyone that goes by will say something as they go past,” Prue says. “It’s usually about things like caring for the garden, you know, ‘the garden’s beautiful’; ‘Oh, we come down and pick the lavender for our roast lamb – is that all right?’
“Of course.
“We live in a great community.”
New memorial spaces from $1250 to $3425, excluding plaques ($416 to $710). More info on Council’s website or call (02) 4227 7780.