In Loving Memory Review: Beyond The Grave

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IN LOVING MEMORY: Wednesday 6th July, BBC2, 9pm ALERT ME

We see them all the time: bunches of flowers tied to railings or piled on top of each other by the roadside. The places where people pass away now often turn into public shrines, marking the memory of those lost to accidents and giving family and friends a place to connect to the last place their loved ones were alive.

In Loving Memory takes a look at modern mourning in Britain and the need to create memorials, be they roadside shrines, websites or tattoos. It’s an emotive subject and the show doesn’t pull its punches, so best keep a box of tissues close at hand.

Over the many conversations with grieving parents we come to understand that they’re bringing their private grief into the public domain and in one particular case, not all members of the public are happy about it. One mother, whose daughter died stepping off of a school bus just yards from her home, was told by the local council that the flowers she laid and the crucifix she placed at the site could only stay for four to six weeks. It may sound hard-hearted but these restrictions could be necessary – are we turning our roads into graveyards?

Gerri Excell, a roadisde memorial resarcher, gives an insight into the hows and the whys of erecting these shrines at the exact spot where someone has died. She explains that young people in particular would rather visit a roadside shrine than a cemetery, favouring the personalised experience over the mass mourning of a graveyard. I couldn’t help but wonder whether, on the whole, these are really helping or hindering the grieving process by delaying acceptance of the loss. Unfortunately, the show celebrates the process rather than questioning it.

The show is a little overly sentimental but it approaches the subject sensitively and although it tries to explore our methods of mourning, I found that it was lacking a historical context that could have given it some genuine credibility.