poliphilo

Tucked in behind the Jewish section of Langney Cemetery is an area set aside for Eastbourne's civilian victims of enemy action. Not all of them are here, not by any means, but those that are- some 28 of the 134- have been arranged in two rows, with matching headstones. Each headstone has a container for flowers.

There were no flowers today

The text on most of the stones follows this simple formula:

In Memory of X, Killed by enemy action, date of death, age.....

I'm guessing those who lie here were buried by the civic authorities. Those who had families with adequate resources would have been buried out in the main part of the cemetery along with all the people who didn't die from the effects of catastrophic violence.

At the end of the front row are two stones with no names on them- just the legend "Known unto God". One doesn't have to exercise much imagination to work out the implications of this....