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Where is my baby buried? Parents hunt for remains after Oldham mass baby 'pit' scandal
14 October 2024, 07:47 | Updated: 14 October 2024, 12:21
LBC can reveal the discovery of a mass grave full of stillborn babies in Oldham has led to parents of other stillborns now trying to find out where their babies are buried.
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Up until the late-1980s, stillborn babies were routinely taken from their mothers, and either disposed of by the hospital or put in a cardboard box and given to the father to take to a cemetery.
Bereaved parents were told by medical staff that their child was being buried alongside a 'nice person' that same day, but the truth was they were being put into a mass grave alongside hundreds of other babies. This is a lie that was repeated time and time again over decades.
The babies were not given first names, the mums were discouraged from holding their babies "for their own good", and without a burial site they were left without a place to go and lay flowers or say a prayer.
The discovery of these mass graves has left families angry and in need of answers. Who decided these babies would be piled up in a pit? How were the graves managed? How long were they open for? How do other parents find out what happened to their baby? Will the government apologise? Will local authorities make the records of these graves digital?
Gina, Diana and Diane all share the same heartache, were all told the same lie by authorities, and have been left with more questions than answers.
Gina Jacobs found her baby after 53 years, she told LBC: "Realising what they told us at the time was a terrible untruth, effectively it stopped us visiting the places where our babies were. It wasn't just me, every story was the same. The lie was repeated over, and over, and over again.
"Every time a baby was taken and left at the cemetery, usually in a box tied with string, the lie was repeated: 'They're going to go in with someone buried that day.' The dads would be instructed to go and pick the baby up, in a cardboard box tied with string. One man was told 'if you hurry you'll catch the next bus'. It really was incredible.
"We were more-or-less told we weren't allowed to speak about it, and the very fact we had been told they were with a person buried that day, it kind of puts you off trying to find the baby because you would be thinking, what if the people who own that grave are there? How will that work? The majority of people did not know, or do not know where their babies are.
Having been able to trace her baby son's resting place, Gina discovered there were 63 other babies in the grave. She said: "I've since called him Robert, he wasn't deemed worthy of a name at the time.
"People have cried, people have broken down, some people have been told their babies were in a different cemetery to what they were. Why would they tell those people that?
"If we had been told the truth we could have been visiting. I could have been visiting for 53 years, I could have taken a card at Christmas, a birthday card, I could have put a tribute on, but how do you put a tribute on a grave that you think belongs to a family?
"I've been asked by the cemetery to not call them 'Mass Graves'... and I'll go along with that, I'll call it a pit, because it was a pit."
Diana Williams had her stillborn baby boy in August 1971, she told LBC: "The awful part is thinking 'I've walked past you, my son, for years', not knowing, not acknowledging this little bundle is in that ground.
"I hate to think how much dignity there was, would somebody say a little prayer? There's no way of knowing these things now because too much time has passed.
"The lies we were told, I'm devastated about that now. We believed it all. It destroys your faith in human nature.
"There's all sorts of horrible stories out there, missing twins, lots of the babies may have been clinical waste, especially if they couldn't survive.
"They're just landfill. They've been tossed in there and that's it. Cover up a layer, and then the next layer goes on. They're just going in as layers and layers and layers, packed tight.
"This is nationwide, and there are more mass graves around. Something needs to be done. Oldham's is a small one, they've had a motion passed and all those records now have to be online, you can look online rather than having to go to the cemetery and look. I think that's a big step forward.
"This is such a scandal because it's been consistent over decades, the systematic disposing of babies' bodies. No dignity of a funeral, nobody remembers these babies. You can't escape disasters, but this wasn't even a disaster. It was 'shove it to one side'. There's so many babies it's unbelievable."
Another mum, Diane, had her baby in Tameside in 1982 but now lives in Brighton and hasn't been able to find where she is buried.
She told LBC: "I was asked by the hospital if I wanted them to deal with the arrangements for the baby, so in my grief I said yes, because one minute you're pregnant, the next minute your baby's dead, so I said yes, but I didn't ask what this meant, I didn't know what was going to happen.
"They couldn't find any records at all, was it a cremation? Was it a mass grave? You basically got given an hour-slot to go to Manchester and search through records. Because my baby's death was early, it wasn't registered, it wasn't on the stillbirth register.
"Initially I was quite emotional, but you can't afford to be when you're searching, because you have to talk about some quite unpleasant things, talking about foetal deaths and phoning mortuaries.
"I know a lot of the women are saying we want an apology, but I'm not at that point yet. I want these people who can help us, to help us. Anyone, a government or a local authority, someone who will put this stuff online so we can access it. There must be women all over the country in the same situation.
"I can’t say if I’m angry, more disappointed this all went on. For me it’s 42 years, but for some of the women it’s longer than that. Do these lies still go on now? People used to say you don’t want to look at the baby because you’ll be upset. 42 years later and you’re still looking for where your baby’s buried, how can you not be upset?"
Maggie Hurley is a Councillor in Royton South, she told LBC: "We're standing beside a grave that holds the bodies of over 400 babies and stillborn babies. Nobody knew they were here. The mothers had been told these babies were buried in graves with other adults, but we now know that's not true. They were put in mass graves around the country.
"These graves were basically large pits, in this particular grave there are 26 adults as well, 12ft square of babies and children. When I first heard, there's points in your life when you think you'll never forget where you were, I will never forget where I was when I heard this story.
"I didn't want to believe this could happen, that as a society we could be this cruel and take away babies and tell the mothers to forget about them. I hope we find the reason why, but it seems to be a directive that was projected across the country. This happened everywhere, not just the North West or Royton.
"There's a directive from somewhere saying take these babies and never let the mothers see them. One was told she should go home, get yourself right and have another baby. That was the medical advice.
"Every local authority knew these baby graves existed, it's like there's been a massive cover up that everyone's taken on the baton for.
"My fight initially was to get all these records online, and we saw the number of babies in these mass graves, and it's frightening.
“For many mothers it's too late, they died never knowing where their babies are. Mothers feel robbed and angry that they weren't allowed this information. Somebody somewhere decided she shouldn't know.
"This has been something that happened over five decades, starting in the 50s and the last baby was put into a grave in 1987. We were still doing this in 1987 and thinking that's okay.
"This is never about blame, the people who made these decisions are probably no longer here, but what we can blame is a system that knew this happened and knew that in every cemetery these graves existed, and never did anything to correct it, never thought for one moment about giving these babies back to their mothers.
"Now, in 2024, the whole country knows this happened. Everyone in the UK knows this happened and are now looking for their babies. Every authority needs to help. The cover up stops now, they need to give these babies back to their mothers.
"I'd like to see one government stand up and do something. This has been brought up in Parliament and the House of Lords, now it's Labour and they've known about this for months. Is there a government brave enough to take this fight on behalf of the country?
"We are looking at probably the worst historical mismanagement of burials in this country ever, and somebody needs to take responsibility and give these babies back to their mothers."
