HUNDREDS of Pembrokeshire stillborn babies, who now lie in unmarked graves, have been given a permanent memorial.

An estimated 400 stillborn babies were born between 1928 and 1975 when it was common practice to take them from their mothers without any ritual.

Now the babies will be permanently remembered at City Road Cemetery in Haverfordwest - where most of the babies were buried.

The new memorial is the culmination of years of campaigning by Pembrokeshire County Council employee, Pat James - Crematorium Assistant at Parc Gwyn in Narberth.

Pat, from Milford Haven, arrived at Parc Gwyn almost 10 years ago and was given the job of transferring its written burial records on to computer.

“As I was going through the inputs I realised there were an awful lot of still births,” she said.

“Many of them were buried in unmarked graves at City Road Cemetery as Haverfordwest was where the local hospital was.

“I also received a lot of phone calls from mothers- many of the now quite elderly - who did not know where their babies were buried and who desperately needed some sort of closure.

“I have taken some of them to City Road to show them the unmarked grave where their child was buried and always thought it was so sad that all these babies were there and no one knew about it.”

Pat began looking for funds to set up a memorial in the cemetery to mark the spot where the stillborn babies had been buried.

Monumental Masons J Cecil Jones of Swansea donated as did Milford Haven funeral director Tom Newing and Sons, while Haverfordwest undertaker Roy Folland and Sons provided four trees to mark the area.

“Today parents of stillborn babies are given a chance to say goodbye to their children with proper burials but it wasn’t always so,” said Pat.

“In the past it was thought that it was best for the mothers if their babies were simply taken away from them after birth for their own good.

“I hope this new memorial will give these mothers - and fathers- some solace. Hopefully it will be a place for them to come and reflect.”

To mark the new memorial a special service will be held on Monday 29th September at 12 noon. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

As well as burials at City Road, there are also unmarked stillborn graves at Llanion and Llanwnda Cemeteries.

St Michael’s Cemetery in Pembroke already has a memorial commemorating the children buried there and it is also planned to install a memorial at Llanion in the near future.