One of the things I've had quite a lot of correspondence about this year is the condition of Commonwealth Warways Commission symmetries in Belgium and France.

And I hope in this special episode of the Old Front Line we will uncover what the problem is, what the history of that problem might be, and what the Warways Commission are hoping to do to remedy the problem, and are remedying the problem, and what the future might hold in respect to this issue.

So I'm really pleased to be joined by John Gedling, who is the Director of the State for the Commonwealth Wargoods Commission.

So welcome, John.

Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure.

Thanks for joining us to talk about this.

Now, I mean some of our quite a lot of our audience are not from Britain or the Commonwealth.

Yeah, sure.

So our organisation was founded during the First World War to care for the um graves and the war dead originally of the Great War and then extended to the Second World War after that.

So we are responsible for the care of 1.7 million uh war dead in about 153 um countries.

So um I'm Director of State, so I um care for the structures, the buildings, and the memorials.

I'm based at our headquarters in the UK.

So for me, there's about um about sort of 2,000 um constructed war cemeteries and memorials around the world where there's something constructed there that that we care for.

Um so that that comes under my responsibility.

And and your work with the Commission has extended over quite a few years, I think.

Yeah, so I've been with the Commission for um eight years, so that makes me in Commission terms a relative newbie, as some of my colleagues have done sort of uh 40, even 50 years in some cases.

So uh an organization with extraordinarily long service of of of colleagues.

But um yeah, I'm in my background, I'm a I'm a um chartered building surveyor and I've come from um caring for historic estates.

And uh most uh recently I have served a couple of terms on one of the um governance committees for historic England.

So yeah, sort of dealing with old buildings, structures, memorials being very much part of my um DNA.

So um yeah, there's a a lot uh a lot going on at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that I've been involved with over these last few years.

Very much the kind of uh work that's taken you through the kind of guardianship and maintenance of heritage of all kinds, then I guess.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um so I mean think of the um First World War cemeteries that many of your listeners will know across the the former Western Front.

You know, typically you've got brick or stone walls, you know, constructed across the sacrifice to stone of remembrance and and shelter buildings and entrance buildings of various levels of complexity.

Um and some of these um cemeteries are highly complex and they were designed by some of the foremost architects of the day, you know, the architects of the empire.

So these are extraordinary cemeteries and memorials.

And if you think about you know the complexity of Tierval, you know, this this this amazing memorial, you know, with the the the sort of brick and the tunnels are intersecting one another, it's absolutely extraordinary.

From a practical point of view, they're not always the easiest to look after because you imagine they've had you know a hundred years plus exposed to the elements in northern Europe, it can be really challenging to to to care for them all.

And then after the second world world war, you think sort of internationally the the Far East, um Africa, India, there was um an awful lot of concrete being used, and that poses other problems as well.

So um, you know, it's a real privilege to look after all the cemeteries, memorials, and the buildings we're responsible for, but there's there's a lot of complexity in how to do that.

Um and uh it keeps us all busy.

I'm sure it does.

I'm sure it does.

And going back to that kind of creation of of the commission and the work that it did in the post-war period to to make the permanent cemeteries and memorials, I mean this was a fairly new thing, and particularly involving the the horticultural side of it to create this kind of English garden effect.

And in that interwar period, I guess they probably faced challenges then in in the early days of of building something that was essentially new.

Yeah, yeah.

I I'm still I'm still staggered by the scale of what was done in those years after the First World War.

Because if you think they they went into these countries that had been absolutely devastated by conflict and constructed some really, really remarkable cemeteries and memorials.

Um so the practicalities of how they did that I find amazing.

But also I think that that design vision and care, because you know that there were there were uh four principal architects involved, you know, these great architects are Lutchen, Baker and and Bloomfield, and joined by Charles Holden, and then this whole team of assistant architects.

And there must have been a great temptation to sort of repeat designs over and over again, you know, the sort of the Lutchen's type A type they and and you really don't get that.

Of course, there's certain features you you see used again, but these architects really looked at every cemetery differently, and they they they incorporated the repeating elements of the cross, the sacrifice, the stone of remembrance, the principles that have been established by the War Graves Commission, but they used their skill and imagination to create these really remarkable um cemeteries that we see today.

So I I feel it's kind of incumbent on us to use that same sort of ethos and uh of care in our work that we do now.

And and we do do new work.

You know, we've just finished the construction of a uh new memorial in Cape Town.

Um, from El, you know, Pheasant Woods uh cemetery in France was um was sort of fifteen or so years ago.

And I think we we've tried to keep those same principles you know, updated to the day, obviously, about construction techniques and skills, but very much from the early days of the Commission there was this sense of quality and care and that's you know that really runs through the organization now.

And I guess that comes back to the comment I was making about colleagues who've been with the organization so long.

There is a real connection to the work that we do.

It it's not just a job, I don't I think for people who work for the commission, it's much more than that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And y you also you you come across people, um you know, particularly, you know, our gardens and our gardeners and stonemasons, where you'll find their father worked for the commission and their grandfather did as well.

So it's not just their own length of service, there's a like a sort of a family link that's gone back, you know, 60, 70 years, which is which is really remarkable.

And there's an awful lot of knowledge as well, which which is great.

So even here at our um headquarters, you know, I'm surrounded by colleagues who've been with the organization for 20, 30 years.

So there's there's a lot of kind of expert knowledge of our cemeteries and how we care for them, and and that really helps guide our work today.

That's brilliant.

A big knowledge base to draw on.

And in terms of this kind of current issue, if I go back to when I first visited the battlefields in in 1979 in the case of Normandy and 82 in the case of uh of Flanders to E.

The the headstones that I can't remember then were were quite white.

They were very white in appearance.

But if I look at images uh from the interwar period and even the immediate post-second war period, there's a kind of a darker tone to them because I guess the way that headstones were maintained in those two periods were very different.

And and chemicals, I think, in that that period when I first went were a big part of how the treatment of headstones, they were a big part of that treatment, I believe.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you you if you look at the very early pictures, there's there's a great um photograph in the information centre at Tynecott, actually, and you see the gardener standing there with all these plants that are above the height of the headstones, and the headstones are are are quite dark.

Um and interestingly, a a colleague sent me a a photograph from the s from the 70s that was a still of a video in about 72, I think it was, and you can really see the headstones are much, much darker than they are today.

And I think that's exactly it, that there just weren't the products available to m perhaps keep them all clean.

And in the see in the early days they it was they had they had brushes, that's that's all they were doing, brushes or the use of water.

And we know that after the Second World War, moving into the sixties and the seventies, chemicals became more common.

You know, and that wasn't just chemicals to clean the headstones, we're talking about, you know, herbicides, weed killers.

These products became plentiful and they were quite cheap and they became the kind of go-to method of you know, looking after war cemeteries.

Um and I I guess it you know it it it produced a certain effect naturally, they did their job, but these days I think we are more conscious of the effects of those products.

And, you know, particularly biasides.

There's been loads of work done uh about you know the the sort of pitfalls of the use of biosides.

You know, historic England have done work at you know the National Trust and and various others about you know w why it's a good idea to move away from these things.

And that's you know, it's partly for um it's it's partly for the soil health, for you know, the plants, but for the stone itself it's not always the best answer either.

So I think we know now that it's not the best solution, but for decades it was the kind of go-to solution.

And and I mean likewise weed killers and things, I think uh there's a lot of people are trying to get away from using those for it it sort of does the job, but you've got a legacy of you've just put all those products into the soil.

And I and I think um that those of us that have been going for a long time will have had that perception of white headstones.

So when changes, I guess, were made within the Commission, following on from advice and perhaps a change in the law in certain countries, in the use of chemicals and pesticides, then people began to see a bit of a change, didn't they?

People started to note on social media, probably just prior to to COVID.

So I guess that's a time in which there was these changes began to come in.

Well, I'd yeah, I think say first of all, that um we've probably not been the greatest at communicating some of this, and we could have done that much better, you know, explaining about why we're doing different things, um, but also I think probably making the point more clearly that the long-term care is really important to us, and that's the fundamental thing about our organization and won't change.

Um I think the the the switch away from biocides is not new because in the Netherlands actually we haven't been using chemical biocides for about ten years.

In in France, particular uh sorry, in Belgium, particularly in Flanders, there was a change made about five or six years ago, and there were two reasons really.

One being we knew ourselves that we wanted to get away from using chemical biocides for reasons of the soil health and the long-term, you know, uh effect on on the stone itself.

But also the legislation was changing and we could see that and actually those those biocides that we've been used to using, we can't use anyway in France because the law says we can't.

And and we're seeing that happening right across the EU.

You know, the Netherlands, we couldn't go back to using the biasides.

There's great swathes of France around Paris where you can't go and use the the the buyer side.

So yeah, the ch the change is coming via sort of legislation and the wider practice, but we also wanted to be sort of a ahead of that and as I say, we perhaps could have been better at maybe communicating some of that more openly.

But also the fundamental long-term care is still the same.

And what I would say is that I think we're more consistent now.

I think there has been instances of certain cemeteries getting cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, and others that were less well visited were not cleaned perhaps so well.

And what we've really tried to do is to be more consistent.

You know, we have a recording system, we have an inspection program, every cemetery is treated equally.

So it doesn't matter if it's really remote and only has a few few visitors or it's right on the Psalm and thousands of people go there, it's still treated the same way.

The headstones are inspected the same way, and all our teams use the head the same headstone um cleanliness guidance.

Um it's a bit of a a a sort of epic task because we care for nearly 700,000 headstones across Western Europe.

So trying to keep on top of them all, I think it is quite a huge task, but we can see in the archives it's always been a challenge for the Commission.

I think the first documents we've got from our archives where they were talking about trying to keep the stones clean was about 1932, something like that.

Where there's communication between the uh the then Imperial Wargraves Commission and um the experts at Kew Gardens about fungi and staining on stone and how to keep them clean.

And there's the you know, there's various things that were done then and and subsequently about trying to keep the stone clean, you know, various preservatives were applied in the 40s and 50s, that now you'd look at them and think, oh my goodness, you wouldn't you wouldn't even use those now.

But they were all attempts to try to keep the stones clean.

Um and the cemeteries that I mean they exist in in the natural world, don't they?

They're part of that landscape.

And and I think everyone can understand the importance of protecting that landscape, protecting that natural world, and making sure that the cemeteries are a part of it and would welcome the the move away, I would guess, from chemicals, because that's it's never a positive thing when it comes to wildlife or plant life or just about anything at all.

But the the move away from it, I guess, has also now created amphetine problems, which is I guess where we get to the black spot issue, which is something that is a phrase that none of us were using even a year or so ago.

Yeah, yeah.

Um yeah, and and the how clean the headstone should be is so emotive, and you you do get lots of views, and I'm sure everyone listening to that will have their own opinion on on you know how how clean should the the stones be.

And interesting, we we had a a a complaint to one of our speakers in the UK just last week to say that we'd gone and cleaned headstones that had some rare lichen on and that we shouldn't have touched them.

You know, up to those who have the view that the stone should be completely clean of all the 365 days a year and all the positions in between, and I get that, it it it is really emotive.

Um I guess I w I would I would repeat again the long-term care and the consistent care is is really important and that hasn't changed for us.

W one of the consequences of reducing the amount of uh biocide we use is that um it contains a chemical bleaching agent and we know that there's like a sort of algae staining on the stone embedded into the stone that the biocide obscured in effect or bleached.

So by removing that product you you start to see this this staining appear.

And and again, historically in the archives, we can see that this was a concern in the past.

So we've we've almost got an issue back that they had before the use of of um of the biasides.

And yeah, it it's simply that we we're using products now that are effective but they don't contain bleaching agents.

So we have to find other ways of of of removing that black black spot staining.

So we we know what it is.

Removing it's more challenging because it's not on it's not just on the surface of the stone, it's embedded into the stone as well.

Um what's quite strange is we've we have seen quite a lot of it this year, particularly in France, much, much less of it in Belgium where they've not been using their biocides for five years, as I said earlier.

So so it's quite odd that there is that difference.

I'm not sure we quite know why that is ourselves.

But we're working with a few um external experts at um you know a couple of universities here in the UK and the University of of Antwerp have been hugely helpful over these past few years with with helping us with the different products.

The the the main enzyme-based product that we use, they did uh helped us with the scientific research on that to verify that the manufacturer's claims were what they said they were in terms of you know limited risk of the soil, etc.

So we're continuing to work with them to l to look at this problem, what can we do to to remove this black stain or this black spot um in a kind of appropriate way.

And we're looking at all different ideas and we've got w I think there's about twelve things we're trying at the moment just to see um to see what they look like.

And interesting, just just before um you know recording this, I've just come back from Brookwood, our big um cemetery in Surrey here in the UK, where we're trying five different things.

So it'd be really interesting to see how effective they are over the coming weeks.

I mean, like you said, there's there's no obvious consistency in it.

So this this year I've been to cemeteries all over the Western Front, but also some in Normandy, where there's almost no sign of it in Normandy.

Now I know many of the headstands were replaced with marble during the 2014.

And then I told this symmetry and absolutely no.

It's a parallel, there doesn't seem to be any final reason to I guess what you're saying is that the the previous methods have kind of held this back, and it's a problem that's always been there, but it's showing itself more now because of because it was never really a problem that was solved.

Yeah, yeah, I I think that's right.

And I I agree, it's really, really odd why it's in some cemeteries and not others.

And um, you know, I I did a a talk back in the summer with our um horticultural manager in France, and we we were at some of the cemeteries around around Serre, whereas you know there are lots and lots of cemeteries you know grouped there.

And some some cemeteries you walk into and you think, oh my goodness, it's on all the headstones, and you go half a mile along the road and it's not there at all.

You think, well, that is really odd.

So we've been plotting all sorts of you know external factors that could have caused it to be more prevalent in one cemetery than than another.

There are certain stone types that seem to be more affected.

Um but but oddly, you know, the Netherlands they've not used they've not used biosides at all really for about ten years.

Yet some of the cemeteries there have not got any of this staining on whatsoever.

Well, you know what's what's the reason for that?

So that's part of the work that we're doing with the um.

I remember talking to the the gardener at Grosebeak uh War Cemetery.

I think uh kind of felt himself a little bit ahead of the curve in the way that he he he he uh had an approach to the commemoration or to the maintenance of the cemetery and he hadn't been using.

I remember him saying years ago he'd not been using chemicals and he's very proud of that fact.

And uh I don't know how long that is, but it it certainly that's a cemetery where that's uh I've never seen any kind of example of this this problem at all.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he he is a great advocate, that's uh the the head gardener there for reduced chemical use, um more natural ways of caring for cemeteries, you know, wildflowers and and an absolutely fantastic looking cemetery.

Um so yeah, I think it's it it shows that um there are different there are different approaches and we we just need to get on top of why it's in some cemeteries more than others and a and uh and a kind of long-term answer.

But I think some some of the the ideas we're trying now are I think are really promising, really interesting.

And I've noticed over the last month of of visiting that there's there's definite changes kind of taking place.

And and I think even some of the the most severe critics online have posted photographs of cemeteries that they went to six months ago where it was quite evident that there was an issue, and now that uh there's been a degree of cleaning or of method tried and there's obvious, obvious changes which I think you know everyone would would welcome.

But it but it's an ongoing process, I guess.

Yeah, it it is.

And this this is the time of year um you know the the these few weeks where you know traditionally we do the the the kind of the big headstone clean before the winter sets in where where a lot of the products is it it's harder for them to be effective.

So yeah, this this time of year an awful lot happens.

Um it is it is an ongoing process.

I think we um you know we'll continue to to try to understand where we've got the black staining and where we can do particular things in those cemeteries.

Um the long-term trend is away from from biosides.

Frankly, whether we whether we like it or not, that's the way things are going.

So we want to be ahead of the curve and find, you know, suitable alternatives.

Um so yeah, it's it's very much ongoing.

But um, you know, I was at um Spanbrook Marlene Cemetery in Belgium about three weeks ago where we have just done I mean that that was one of the cemeteries where there was there was criticism about the condition.

I think rightly so, we haven't got that right.

But the team there have just done um treatment with lime wash and they're also using an alternative enzyme product and a couple of other things as well.

And the expert at the University of Antwerp was actually using that cemetery to to to test independently how effective all of these all of these different things are.

So it'd be really interesting to see whether any of those are viable or or as I suspect, there might be different things we need to do in different places.

Yeah, yeah.

And I I kind of think uh one of the things that you did with uh the webinar that you had and and the information that you're putting online, communicating this to people I think is is really, really important because the Commission is kind of a government organisation, but it's it's one that I think most people would feel very differently about because they feel invested in it in terms of what it's perfect to commemorate uh the nations and the wider Commonwealth did from two world wars.

And many of those people who feel invested in that way often have their own relatives in the care of the Commission.

So I think this is why you know perhaps patterns rise quite high at times, because people have a high regard for the Commission and a high regard for its work.

Yeah, and uh yeah, and look, point taken, and I think I think you're absolutely right, that communication is important, and that's that is what we've lacked in the past.

And and when this issue with the black staining came to light, I guess we tried to deal with it internally, and perhaps we should have just been more open then about look, this is the challenge.

Um I think since the webinar um in September, we've continued to do um posts with updates.

There's a quite recent video that's just gone on with my one of my colleagues and Wynne Pirer in Belgium talking about this issue.

And there's a couple of more things that we're gonna do like that.

So it's not so it's not just you know people like me talking about it, you know, it's it's some of our team out in France and Belgium, you know, who've been with us a long time talking about the challenge and what what they're doing.

So, yeah, absolutely we need to do more of that, and we should have done it sooner.

I completely get that point.

But I I think it's welcome.

And I think, you know, because people are they they just kind of feel that these are so important these types, and uh that important beyond the the history of their their own family, it kind of defines everything that that Britain and the Commonwealth was, you know, in a century of of history and more, and they still have such relevance.

And and I think it's it's a positive kind of connection that people have and they feel positively about the Commission, and and it's good to make sure that that remains harnessed.

Yeah, and I the long-term care is so important to us, and I think one of the hardest things for a for a lot of clothes to hear is the is the sort of suggestion that they don't care because they are so invested, there is such length of service and and what have you.

So this this is really important to get right.

Um I would say is it it if anyone who visits the cemetery feels that we have not got it right, they can send a message to our inquiries or or via the website.

Photos are always really helpful, you know, which cemetery it was, which day, photos if possible, and I absolutely promise that we will look into it and and we will get our teams to investigate.

And if and if we've if we've dropped we haven't got the standard right, and I accept that that is the case, you know, sometimes we just haven't got it right.

If the messages come in, details of of where it is, you know, what the problem was, we we will investigate.

Our teams will go and have a look, we will check, and and we will, you know, if if if we haven't met the standards, we will we will put it right.

And I think that's good, and I'll I'll put a link in the show notes to that part of the Commission's website so that people can kind of click through to it.

Because you you don't want I mean, I've had people email me, for example, and say, Can I volunteer to go out and clean some stones?

And I don't think that's what you want.

What you want is information and knowledge at this point as to where these problems are and photographs of it, like you say, rather than people going out there to try and do something themselves.

Yeah, I th yeah, I think that's right.

I think you know, as I mentioned before, s 700,000 headstones across Western Europe.

So I I think you know, France alone is something like 858 cemeteries.

The scale is huge.

We've got about 300 gardeners, and we we're often reliant on you know individuals making making a decision about individual cemeteries, and most cases people get it right, but either they don't quite get it right, or there's other factors, or or we simply missed it.

And I get that happens.

So we have a we have an inspection cycle, we have people out looking at the cemeteries all the time.

time, but sometimes we just miss things.

Um and so yeah, we will we will act if we've missed it and someone lets us know, we will turn act on it.

But yeah, we we do very much have our inspection programs to get round all these cemeteries.

There is a sort of timing thing as I was saying because we know that if we haven't got it right by kind of end of November time, it's really difficult to put it right over the winter.

We're then reliant on on going and steam cleaning cemeteries, which is which is far from ideal with the you know the trying to get equipment to do that is pretty last resort.

We will where we have to, but that is not is not the ideal.

So it's trying to trying to make the judgment call in the sort of October November time of what needs cleaning ready for the winter ahead and then we do it again in the spring and then there's an ongoing thing.

So our gardeners in France are now using an app so they record what you know what they've done in a cemetery as part of their visit.

So they're looking at headstones as part of that.

So we can be a bit more consistent and and you know make make sure the cycle has picked up all the work required at the right time.

And I guess as we're coming towards the wind you say you've done remedial work in preparation for the winter but I guess people who perhaps only casually visit the battlefield what they perhaps need to understand is that the winters in these places can be very severe.

And if it's potentially a top stone standing in the open exposed landscape that will always be problems.

And if we're going to renegotiate how as humans we we live alongside the natural world that's got to be kind of part of our understanding that not everything can be pristine every single day of the year that the weather conditions will always affect what we see on that landscape when we visit.

Yeah I I I I think that's right.

I think you know the the duty of care is there and that's paramount.

But we've we've got to we've got to be sort of practical as well and I think you know aside from the number of of graves and the headstones that I mentioned I think Fabian Ware, you know our founder, I think he referenced something like 50 miles of wall that was constructed after the First World War.

And I think that might even have been an underestimation actually so the amount of construction across these cemeteries even aside from the graves is huge.

And you know the appropriate standard of cleanliness is as I said earlier is really emotive to have every piece of stone free from all dirt 365 days a year in northern Europe, the only way you could ever do that is copious amounts of chemical and we we know that wasn't done historically.

They couldn't possibly do it historically they didn't have the chemicals.

You probably can't well you definitely can't do that now as well without lots and lots of quite harsh chemicals and that's not appropriate for graves of the war dead really.

So longer term I think I think well I'm sure it's absolutely beholden on us as an organisation to look after these cemeteries in the most responsible way that that we can and that means using the least harmful products and processes um while maintaining that standard of care.

And it's where you draw that line is very emotive.

But I I think it's also really important that we are consistent.

That's really important to me because I hate any of this thought that well you should concentrate on you know Tine Cot 'cause it's 'cause it's so large and the big cemeteries are the some that get the visitors.

Yeah of course we should but equally we should be focusing on a small cemetery you know far away from northern France that gets a handful of visitors because those commemorated there are commemorated equally.

So it's so it's also been consistent across across the whole um uh of um northern Europe.

And that idea of uniformity in death equality in death is is something that's at the very heart of the Commission's principles.

Yeah yeah absolutely so the number of visitors doesn't come into it for us and we you know we spend an awful lot of time repairing you know s cemeteries and memorials where we know they have a small number of visitors and getting more visitors would be great and that's you know there's work there's work to be done on that for sure but actually the decision about where we prioritise the maintenance the project work which is always a balance across a such this huge global estate the number of visitors that a cemetery or the memorial receives doesn't come into it so everyone is treated equally.

Well I I I thank you John for taking the time to to explain this to us because it it has uh prompted a a lot of kind of emails to to the podcast about this and and I think that people they they just want to know and I think that the way you've explained it and and the wider issues here and the way the commission have continued to engage and I presume that's going to continue as we go forward.

I think it's it's definitely the kind of the way forward for everyone.

Yeah thank you well look I'm I'm really glad to to talk about it actually because it's a really important issue and I think yes we need to be more open about the things that we're doing but I'm really excited about some of the ideas that we're trying because I think it may well show us a way forward and um I just came back from Brookwood where we've got all sorts of things we're doing I can see they're beginning to make a difference already.

So I'm now thinking well you know if if you can scale these up then fantastic because they're much less harmful than those chemicals we've been using.

They are producing a really good standard of clean you know we have to we have to absolutely reassure ourselves that they work, they're right for the soil, you know we have independent experts who help us with that but that that could show us a real way forward for the for the black spot issue certainly so I think we will get there.

I would and I would encourage again people just to let us know via the inquiries email or on the the website if if there are issues, if there's concerns or even if they're not sure we can look into it and then um you know we can we can make sure we're dealing with the issue.

Brilliant.

Thank you John thanks for taking the time to to talk to us here today and we'll put links to the Commonwealth Warwick Commission in the show notes for this episode.

I don't know if there's anything you want to say just before we finish up No thank thank you very much for the opportunity to to talk to you we will do much more on the website so we're gonna encourage um your listeners to follow that and to see some other content that we're putting up there and we will we will keep doing that and then we will do another webinar um in in January.

We're hoping to bring on uh one of our external experts either as part of that or as a subsequent one to talk a bit more about exactly what the problem is and the next step.

So um yeah lots more to come.

Brilliant thanks John thanks for taking the time today great thank you you've been listening to an episode of the Old Frontline with me, military historian Paul Reid.

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