LAST Saturday, Yarm was honouring those who fell in action in 1915. During the same weekend, unknown persons (or one person) carried out no less than three incidents of theft of plants from Egglescliffe’s Village War Memorial Garden.

Do they not realise that these were not only acts of theft, but also acts of desecration that insult the memory of the brave men whose names appear on the memorial?

The garden has been lovingly planted and tended by a small group of volunteers and is much appreciated by most of the people who walk past it or visit the memorial and its viewpoint overlooking Yarm. The stolen plants were bought with funds from the Egglescliffe and Area Residents’ Association and the Parish Council or were donated by the volunteers.

These crimes were not acts of casual youthful or drunken vandalism. They were carried out with great care. On each of three occasions, enough choice plants to be carried on foot were carefully selected to produce a small, colour co-ordinated display. The thief (or thieves) had obviously come prepared with a trowel and with a container of some sort to carry away the plants as no soil residue was left on the surrounding path.

What a contrast between this sordid and disrespectful petty thief and the brave men commemorated on the War Memorial!

Richard and Jan Crouch, Egglescliffe.