Telford community comes together to clean up memorial for the fallen

The Second World War memorial in Donnington, near The Parade, was blighted by dirty paving tiles, overgrown grass verges and misplaced wreaths until councillor for the Humbers Jay Gough decided to step in.

Councillor Gough, a former engineer with the Royal Signals, rallied friends and members of the Donnington community and on a day of action they brought power tools and paintbrushes to tidy the beauty spot up.

More than a dozen volunteers turned out and worked through the day, washing the tiles and tidying up the grass surrounding the memorial cross, which was given a fresh coat of paint.

Councillor Gough said: "As far as I am concerned remembrance is more important that Christmas, and the memorial in Donnington hadn’t been properly taken care of for a long time so I organised a wonderful team of volunteers and we made it look beautiful again.

"There is much more work to come with ongoing maintenance, as well as sorting the gates out which don’t look great at the moment.

"I may have organised it, but the people who should take any credit are the volunteers who showed up and worked their socks off all day. I am incredibly proud of each and every one of them.

"We have accomplished so much and in my opinion, the memorial is now worthy of those who gave up so much so we could live the lives we have today."

Thanks

A tree was donated for the memorial, replacing a similar tree that was removed several years ago.

"I would like to extend a special huge thank you to Telford, a Wyevale Garden Centre who were kind enough to donate a new cherry tree that we planted in place of an old one," Councillor Gough said.

"I’m looking forward to watching that tree grow over the years knowing that was something we did together."

Councillor Gough served in the army from 2008 to 2015, when he was discharged with post-traumatic stress disorder.