Roadside memorial bouquets

Hang on in there Aka. I know how it feels when you are thinking you are not being understood properly. I took a "breather* for a week when I felt unhappy about something but then felt ready to return. Most GNs are brilliant and supportive and I feel my life has been enriched. Just occasionally someone is insensitive without meaning to be . They are just expressing their opinion but we are on dangerous ground when we don't know the background to someone else's problem.

I haven't commented on this thread so far as I knew it would be emotive but for the record I live on a badly lit main road and have 3 such memorials within a stone's throw of our house. -They have been there for 5 or 6years now . My grandchildren and I frequently comment on them and it reminds us of the sacredness of life and the sadness of "sudden death" families." Two of them date from Christmas times which make them extra poignant.

Come back aka. Your opinion is as valuable as everyone else's

I didn't mean that Aka!!! No way!

Oh, exercise bike calls. Telling me to shift my ar posterior.

Gransnet is always the time and place. Don't be put off by the pokers, aka.

Thanks Bags. But perhaps Jois right and there's a time and place, and this isn't it. Off now.

Right behind you, aka. I have not suffered such a loss but I think I can begin to imagine....

And somehow, a bit of untidiness or unwanted cellophane ceases to have much, if any, importance.

Personal means aimed at one particular person. I guess you must havd mean for me not to let my personal feelings out?

I'm not angry! I didn't think you did mean just me.

When I wrote 'you' I wasn't referring to you personally Jo or I would have written your name. I meant the plural 'you'...all those who posted negatively about this. So nothing personal. Please don't get angry with me.

Precisely. So best not to get too personal.

Nor you in mine.

Aka - you don't know what has gone on in other posters' lives.

It's good I suppose that you have never suffered this kind of loss and cannot understand the need to place these monuments. I hope you remain in this blissful state, truly, I'd never wish this pain on anyone.

Oh! That happens in the book I read recently - Vernon God Little! Wonder if it was a dramatisation of that? Sorry I missed it if it was.

I'm not a fan of these memorials - locally a post was festooned with them and nearly caused an accident as it covered yellow strips - the Highways people do not like them at all for several reasons. Firstly they do often cover traffic signs and of course as the wrappings and teddies crumble it goes all over the road and roadside.
There was a very good drama about a couple whose lawn was covered in memorials as there had been an accident outside their home.

I can see where Nfk is coming from. Some people do seem to have no inborn awareness of the unsightliness of some old discarded things.

There is another of these memorials on the way to my daughter's house. It has the football scarves/flags/badges, and cellophane. I think that is going too far.

Also a silly assumption to make, since I expect there is absolutely no evidence to support such an idea.

I'm a litter hater too, but I don't think wild accusations help anyone with anything.

At the end of the road where my grandsons live there is a roadside memorial. A young man rode his motor cycle one night into a tree.

I have to admit that at first I hated it being there. I was worried it would be upsetting for the boys to have to pass it each time they went to school, and, of course, there were the inevitable questions. I felt it was unfair for other people to impose their grief on my grandsons. And (shamefully) I felt less sympathy than I should because speeding, danger to others, and careless youth, came into my mind. But looking back, the boys were totally unconcerned. It was just me being over-precious. It is still there several years on and it does get renewed, very ocassionally. Perhaps the family have moved away and have to make a special journey. I don't know.

I have mixed feelings about these memorials. I think a few flowers soon after the event - no cellophane - is reasonable. But I do agree that a continuing memorial may serve as a warning to others.

I think that's a horrible thing so say nfk.

I don't think they are necessarily the same people, nfk . Aka described thoughtful people.

I have never deliberately dropped litter in my life and I am annoyed by those who do. However I would not describe those who go to the trouble and expense of leaving flowers as litter louts.

You may be right Aka, they're probably the same people who throw empty coke cans from their car windows believing they vanish into thin air. (Sorry - the rubbish state of our roads is a bit of a soap box for me)

positivepam
I understand what roadside memorials mean to the bereaved. They have gone to a shop, chosen their flowers with love, gone to their chosen spot and laid their offering there in pain and sorrow. So they don't think to remove the cellophane. Other people will just have to live with that - compared to their enduring pain and loss feelings about a bit of cellophane hardly matters does it?

(These people who deprive kites and crows of their dinners - do they bury toads too? We used to have a lot of squished toads around here - they're dying out now though) (this is a joke - they don't really - do they?)

Positive it must be truly devastating to loose a loved one in a violent way, especially when it's someone young with the prospect of a good life before them .
Personally, I am in favour of roadside memorials. They are touching reminders of a life cruelly shortened - for whatever reason, through whoevers fault - and causes passers by to remember too.
I wrote the OP having passed on the way home what I thought to be fly tipping (another grouse of mine which never fails to raise my hackles) draped around and up a tree only to realise as I passed that it was a memorial for a traffic accident. But no actual flowers could be seen - just the tatty wrappings. They needn't have bothered with the flowers at all - just screw up some paper and cellophane and leave that there!