In the latest of our series of blogs, memorial technician Matt Williams outlines his working week and explains how his love of history and creating special items makes this the perfect job for him.
Monday
There is never a typical day or week at Art Stone Memorials but our first job in the morning at the workshop is to check the plan for that day and the rest of the week. I never get that Monday morning feeling. Having worked in the concrete manufacturing industry after I left the RAF, I wanted a change and joined Art Stone Memorials in 2018 – gaining my National Association of Memorial Masons certificate quite quickly. I have never regretted that decision and love everything about this job.
It’s pouring with rain and we can’t get out on site so I spend the day preparing a memorial stone with memorial mason Alex Burlaka. I have learnt so much from Alex who is an incredible craftsman and I focus on sand blasting a granite memorial ready for the inscription to be gilded.
I love making things- both at work and at home where I am always disappearing into my shed to tinker with bits of wood. My latest joy is pyrography and I have made a lovely ornament of my beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback which has had lots of compliments and requests that I do one for their dog too!
After dinner I head over to our showroom in Stapenhill to meet up with Amy Lamb, finish off the new window display and collect a couple of plaques which families have requested to be cleaned. I also unload about 20 house signs and pet memorials that we have finished which have been ordered from our website so that they can be packaged beautifully and sent out to the customers.
Tuesday
Thankfully the weather has improved today so my colleague Owen Frost and I head to Nottingham Road cemetery in Derby to fix a memorial for a family who are particularly keen to have the headstone in place ahead of their late mother’s birthday.
This cemetery is the only one locally which has rafts – or concrete beams – so we drill the dowel holes, secure the foundation stone in place and then carefully ease the memorial into place. In other cemeteries and graveyards which do not have a raft, we need to dig out the foundation for the memorial stone and fill with a concrete mix so that the memorial does not sink with the surrounding ground. This can be very time consuming as you never know what’s in the ground – particularly if the plot is near an established tree and the roots have spread or if the ground is heavy with clay as is the case in many of the local graveyards.
We then head over to another churchyard to complete the first of the three stages we do to fix a new kerb set. Today we dig out the soil (covering the neighbouring plots so that they don’t get dirty) and we will then return to lay slabs and then the stone chippings. The family plan to come along on the last day which I always welcome. It is nice to hear more about the loved one that they have lost and is always a reminder that memorials are more than a headstone – they are a personal tribute to a loved one – and the families are putting their trust in us to make this a beautiful and long lasting memorial to someone dear to them.
Wednesday
We know that today is going to be tricky as we need to remove a memorial from the churchyard in South Derbyshire so that a second inscription can be created for a lady who has now been buried alongside her husband who died 20 years ago. As is often the case, the graves are all well-established and close together so we need to be really careful to remove the 5ft high memorial which is more than six inches thick. This is obviously a manual job with no room for lifting equipment so it takes all our strength and I am always thankful that I have kept up my fitness over the years as a black belt in Jujitsu. We successfully remove the stone and carefully take it back to the van on a trolley before returning to ensure the grave itself and surrounding plots are clean and tidy as it’s so important to respect everyone’s feelings – not just the family we are working for.
Owen needs to get back to the workshop for an urgent job with Alex so I then head over to a local crematorium to fix three different cremation tablets which is a one man job.
Thursday
We are back at a local cemetery today to re-fix a memorial in one of the older sections that we have restored in the workshop. An elderly gentleman wanted the memorial to his brother who died more than 70 years ago when he was just a child. He wants it to be restored to its former glory before he too passes away. We have previously removed the marble and cleaned it all up in the workshop. It also needed quite a bit of renovation as there are so many new regulations and old memorials are held together with all sorts of things including copper pipe which need to be replaced with stainless steel dowels.
Having re-faced the marbled and re-painted the inscription, the memorial is looking brilliant and it is so satisfying to see it back in place. We report back to Amy in the showroom that the job is completed so that she can contact the gentleman and I hope that he will be able to get out soon to see it for himself.
Friday
Some families do not sort out the memorial until ten or 20 years after losing their loved one for many different reasons and today we are in the Derbyshire Dales to fix a memorial at a long-established grave.
After all this time, there is no grave marker so we head inside the historic church to find the vicar who will double check the records. It’s always a treat to be able to see inside old churches as I love history.
We finish the memorial fixing and, as we leave the churchyard, I am always struck by the fact that we are leaving a legacy for future generations and the work we are doing today will still be here long after we have gone.
I finish the working week looking forward to the weekend when I will be gathering again with the Sealed Knot for an English Civil War enactment at a stately home. I am one of the pikemen which is a role that I love. They used to protect the muskets from the cavalry and we also re-enact the battles. It’s very physical but I always enjoy the day – particularly as my three daughters come with me. They too love learning all about the history and their job is to look after the horses.