ALBERT Jackson calls himself the Burngreave Cemetery Gravedigger – and while they ceased to dig graves there in the 80s he's only half-joking.
He does plenty of digging all right – of the facts about the poor souls buried there.
In the cemetery are some 250 victims of the First World War between 1914-1918 and now, for the first time, there's a book which identifies them all.
It's taken him five year years to research, mostly soldiers and sailors who died in battle, sometimes of their wounds years after the war.
There are also civilians, including 19 of the 28 men, women and children killed in the only Zeppelin attack on Sheffield on the night of September 26, 1916.
They are gone but not forgotten.
"The Friends of Burngreave Chapel and Cemetery open every Sunday between 11am and 3pm and there are always people enquiring about relatives, many of them who died in the war," says Albert.
The dead are remembered in one of four ways. They might have an individual grave with headstone provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) or be mentioned on a family gravestone.
They might also be recalled on one of two official memorials.
One is the mass war grave, recording the names of the 31 who died after being repatriated to hospitals in Sheffield, and the bigger war memorial commemorates those who have no other CWGC memorial.
The book goes further than those just buried in Burngreave. In a Sheffield Roll of Honour it also includes local men lying in some foreign field, bringing the total to 400.
Albert has found some very human stories. Brothers George and Thomas Park both signed up from Sudbury Street, George to the Royal Navy, Thomas to the 2nd Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
George, a stoker, died first, when HMS Bulwark exploded at Sheerness on November 16, 1914.
Thomas, a private, went a year later on the fields of France.
Some died for their country but were not officially recognised, such as Private James Harvey of the Durham Light Infantry.
Wounded in action at Loos while rescuing a colleague, he was invalided back, caught TB and died of gastroenteritis.
His death is recorded on the family grave at Burngreave but not by the Commission.
There's also a mystery. Eighty fellow Australians stood by the grave of Henry Valentine Ryan, a munitions worker at Vickers, who died from flu five days before the war ended on November 6, 1918.
Was he the same Henry Valentine Ryan, with the same age, medical history, background and similar signature, who deserted from the Australian army?
"His is one of the more fascinating stories," says Albert.
And, though it's nothing to do with the 1914-18 war, the book notes the cemetery is the final resting place of trumpeter Richard Davies, the last city survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854.
He lived until December 19, 1902.
Victims of the Great War is £7 from Sheffield Scene, Surrey Street, or the chapel on Sundays. The chapel is also open from September 12-14 as part of English Heritage Week.
What do you think? Add your comment below.READ MOREMain news indexYour letters.
FeaturesMore Rotherham newsMore Doncaster newsMore Barnsley newsCheck out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic sectionLatest sport. The full article contains 576 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
