Troy Steadman wrote:

If the Midland could dig up thousands of festering corpses without too
much of a kerfuffle why would there be controversy 140 years later over
a few odd bones? Frenchmen's bones at that!

I was a gravedigger in the school holidays many years ago in Epsom. In
the chalklands bodies rot away after 50 years, the gravestone is cleared
and the plot is resold.

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In the Cemetery: Thomas Hardy

"You see those mothers squabbling there?"
Remarks the man of the cemetery.
"One says in tears, ''Tis mine lies here!'
Another, 'Nay, mine, you Pharisee!'
Another, 'How dare you move my flowers
And put your own on this grave of ours!'
But all their children were laid therein
At different times, like sprats in a tin.
"And then the main drain had to cross,
And we moved the lot some nights ago,
And packed them away in the general foss
With hundreds more. But their folks don't know,
And as well cry over a new-laid drain
As anything else, to ease your pain!"

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Andy Kirkham