Debacle over addition to war memorial gets villagers in a twist

The announcement that Kitty Trevelyan’s name had finally been etched into her village war memorial 100 years after her death was made with great fanfare and hailed a victory for women’s rights.

But just a few months later, the entire campaign has descended into farce after a local resident complained that the person remembered was “nothing short of a fictional character name” from BBC war drama The Crimson Field and it emerged that the local parish council should never have altered a listed monument without consent.

Burrator Parish Council’s application for retrospective planning permission was met with opposition from various quarters, including the War Memorials Trust, and has now been withdrawn amid suggestions that Kitty’s name should be removed from the monument in Meavy, Dartmoor, and that she should perhaps be remembered on a separate stone.

Sue Robinson, founder of Wenches in Trenches, which researched Kitty’s story and campaigned for her name to be included on the memorial said she wished they could wash their hands of the whole debacle.

“The Parish Council, who gave us permission to do this, are wrong. They live in a national park, they should have known they would need permission,” she said.

“They wanted us to pay to have the name put on and now they want us to pay to have it taken off. It was £100 + VAT - just change really - but they said they couldn't afford to, and nobody in the village could either.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/21/debacle-addition-war-memorial-gets-villagers-twist/