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Strangers swap cemeteries to remember loved ones

Jason Bassett is planning a journey this weekend to tend a grave in Moffat cemetery.

It is for a woman he had not heard of until a few days ago.

At the same time, Christine Hastie from Solihull has been spending time at a memorial to Mr Bassett's father - a man she never met.

It is all the result of an appeal made on Facebook in the hope of assistance due to the inevitable difficulties caused by coronavirus restrictions.

It started when Mr Bassett - a funeral director in Dumfries - realised his family was unlikely to be able to make the journey to his dad John's ashes memorial plot at Robin Hood Cemetery in Solihull this year.

"I moved away from Birmingham when I was 13 but my dad still stayed in Birmingham," he explained.

"We always made the trip to see my dad at Christmas and, when he passed away, we just continued doing it but putting a holly wreath at his memorial in the cemetery.

"Obviously this year we are not able to go down and I had just accepted, well I won't go down."

However, he decided to post on a local Facebook group in Solihull to see if anyone else might be willing to help him.

"I was just inundated with people with messages," he said.

"I don't know how many people have been in contact since then to arrange things."

One woman agreed to lay a wreath and then Ms Hastie got in contact to say she had a predicament much like his own.

"A lady messaged me to say she was in a similar situation but her mum was in Scotland," he said.

"I thought, I will ask where in Scotland because Scotland is big and I couldn't believe it when she said Moffat.

"It is only a 40-minute car journey for myself so I offered to do the same for her."

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