More than $15,000 was invested in the renovations of the near 70-year-old Nassau War Cemetery that houses and commemorates more than 60 Commonwealth military dead of both world wars. Yesterday morning at the cemetery, located between Farrington Road and Maxwell Lane, former British High Commissioner Peter Young said the cemetery, which was built in 1944, had “sadly” been left to deteriorate over the past few years. He explained that for the past four weeks he and the contracting company – Concrete Systems Bahamas Ltd — have been carrying out renovations. Mr Young serves as the current honorary supervisory of the cemetery on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) which assumed responsibility for the cemetery in 1973 in agreement with a newly independent Bahamas government.
“Sadly over the last few years, for various reasons, it was allowed to deteriorate,” Mr Young said of the cemetery. “It was in a terrible state.” The roots of two large trees were causing damage to the perimeter wall, plants were overgrown, and the paths were dirty and in need of repair. As part of the renovations, the two trees were removed, the walkways and curbing were cleaned and repaired where necessary, as were the headstones and memorials, Mr Young said. “But the next phase will be doing something about this wall,” he said, pointing to the dirty and decaying perimeter wall.
“We want to keep it. It’s a beautiful old Bahamian wall, but we need to clean it and patch it in places.” In addition to cleaning and repairing the wall, improving the entrance and providing a separate hut for storage of maintenance supplies is also planned, he said. “The main thing after that will be maintaining it. Now that we have got it in a decent state, we are determined to maintain it,” he said also taking note of the discovery of a well on the property which could provide water for further maintenance work. On Friday, vice chairman of the CWGC Lieutenant Alistair Irwin and CWGC secretary-general of the Canadian agency Brad Hall plan to visit the renovated cemetery.
“They’re coming on to the Bahamas just for one day as part of a Caribbean tour. They’re quite a number of graveyards like this around different countries in the Caribbean,” Mr Young said. The two men will also pay a courtesy call on Commodore Roderick Bowe of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and will meet with representatives of the Bahamas Branch of the Royal British Legion. According to Mr Young, the cemetery contains the graves of 46 British and five Canadian causalities while seven British and two Canadian servicemen are also commemorated.
The CWGC, which was established in London in 1917, maintains the graves of more than 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars. Mr Young said the Commission cares for 940,000 burials in 2,500 war cemeteries and 21,000 other burial grounds across 150 countries and the 760,000 dead without known graves are commemorated on some 200 memorials. Funding comes from an annual grant from the six member governments of the Commission – Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India.
Those six nations pay in proportion to the number of graves they maintain around the world, Mr Young explained. “It’s very important work to honour the dead,” he said. “We’re talking about 1.7 million around the world – Commonwealth men and women who died during the war. It’s a huge task but it’s a sign of responsible governance who do commemorate, look after, and honour the war dead.”
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