WSB trip to visit Rev. Preedy's grave...space available

Great to hear that you lads are going to go and maintain the grave.

Here's an account of the Preedy Grave Restoration project that Paul Waddington (Gordon Ottershaw) wrote in 2009 and some photos of before and after:

Good to see the response, because it has been something that we have been talking about doing for some time. Alan Bloore first mentioned locatingand maintaining the grave in the mid-90's, at which time the original monument was still standing. We originally mistakenly thought it was located in the more famous Highgate Cemetery, when in actual fact it is in Islington and St Pancras Cemetery, which is neither in Islington nor St Pancras, but East Finchley.

In 2001 John Mills went and tidied the grave up and took some pictures. Again the monument was still there, but some time after that it seems to have been vandalised.

Last year the Trust reminded us that they had raised money to repair the grave and as I lived in London at the time I volunteered, along with my wife Julie, to go along and have a look at the grave to see what state it was in and what needed doing. We were armed with a rough map and a photo from 2001.

The cemetery is actually the largest in London and Rev Preedy is buried right at the back of the cemetery. We went to where the map showed the grave to be, but there was no sign. All the graves in that area were from the early part of the 20th century, so you can imagine how overgrown it had become. After so long, many graves are now hidden within a load of trees. Anyway, we searched and searched, looking for the monument from the picture, but after an hour and a half we gave up. I must add that we hadn't taken a copy of the picture with us, so we decided to go home and have another look at the picture.

We went back to the cemetery a fortnight later and again searched for 90 minutes with no luck. At one point i was fighting through the bracken deep into the trees, with my then two year old little girl under my arm (she was loving it), hoping that nobody spotted me and presumed the worst, whilst my wife was fighting through the trees at the other side hoping she didn't end up in one of the graves.

Again, we gave up and went back to the car. I was determined though, so I went back to the spot where the map indicated the grave was and scratched my head. It was only then that I glanced down at a pile of leaves and saw a small stone peeping through. It had never occurred to me that the cross might have fallen down. I should add that at that precise moment Wolves went one-nil up at Oakwell, so read into that what you will.

Anyway, having found the grave, I went back a week later with another (now ex) London Tyke, Andrew Molyneux (Molly) and we cleared the leaves and branches andscrubbed the stones that were still in place. Fortunately, the inscription was on the base stones that were still in place. We dug around the undergrowth and put together some pieces of the cross, but there was no sign of the marble figure of Christ that was attached to it. We can only therefore presume that the vandals had actually broken the monument to steal the figure.

To give you an idea as to how overgrown it was, there was a fully grown tree protruding from the middle of the grave at the side of Rev Preedy. With trees all around the area it's only a matter of time really before all the graves are damaged by the roots.

We congratulated ourselves on a job well done and then it was time to arrange the stonemason. If you want to see the state of the grave when we found it and after our tidy up, they are on the Supporter's Trust website. By looking at the finished work you can see that our 'restoration' efforts weren't actually that good!

Rev Preedy had no direct descendents, but there was an elderly great niece still alive. Someone from the Trust had contacted her previously, but to be honest, she didn't know the relevance of her great uncle to Barnsley Football Club. After speaking with the Memorials Administrator from Islington Council it was determined that nobody really owned the graveand he was more than happy for us to repair the damage, providing it was tasteful and respectful of the original design. In fact, we ended up using the stonemason that works for the council.

We were hopeful that it would be possible to fix the new cross onto the existing base, preserving the inscription and, having never done anything like this before, I didn't fully appreciate how good these tradesmen are! They fixed the new cross and restored all the original marble, so it looked as good as new. We were really impressed when we got down to see the work a few weeks ago.

It was clear though exactly how quickly it can get dirty from fallen leaves, etc, so we are enlisting the help of some of the London Tykes to help tidy and maintain it. A certain London Tyke that used to go by the name of Direwatch has already offered to help and I am working on others...

Initially we weren't sure whether the original inscription could be saved and we spoke of fixing a bronze plaque to the cross. John Daykin wrote a nice piece that mentioned Reverend Preedy's achievements with the club, as well as his achievements with the church and with his boxing club in London. I won't go into all this here, but a quick Google search will bring up some excellent pieces written by other Reds fans. On one of them I came across a photograph of his funeral, where you can see nothing but clear sky behind the grave. If you visit the cemetery you will see it looks nothing like that now.

In the end though, we have postponed the idea of a plaque for now, but it is something that we may revisit in the future. As the grave is now the only new looking one in a very old part of the cemetery, it does stand out a bit. And as we suspect that it was the marble figure that attracted the vandals, we're not sure whether we want anything to bring any further attention to it. After all, anybody that visits will be fully aware of who he is and why they are there. It really isn't located in an area that people will walk past when visiting the cemetery.

So whilst it has been nice to see the response and be credited for the work (the Chronicle goes as far as to credit me with the idea, which is strecthing things a bit too far!), there are other people that also need recognizing for helping out, not least my wife, Julie, and Molly, who helped with the initial work, but also people like John Mills, John Daykin, Alan Bloore, the London Tykes and the Supporters Trust, for supporting the plan and raising the money. The work was done independently of the club, although Patrick Cryne is aware and is appreciative of the effort. Hopefully this will demonstrate the type of things that the Supporters Trust are aiming to do.

I'll leave you with one story though, that I'm not sure which way to take. When we took the photographs of the finished work, we were actually back down in London for a party (we moved back north last year). As Julie and myself were checking the pictures on the camera we were aware that we had a little excited three year old who was eager to get to the party and when we turned round she was actually dancing on Rev Preedy's grave! I'm just dreading that this means she's going to grow up a Wednesday fan...

Paul's first visit to the grave:



After Paul, Julie and Molly's first restoration:



After the restoration :

 

It was just the cross that got replaced, they renovated the original marble. They did an amazing job with the base right?

 

I'm sure Wadds wouldn't mind. I think we had that on the old Trust website (might even still be up there somewhere).