A former veteran who travels the country restoring war graves and memorials has inspired cadets to work on a project in Dartmouth.
Cadets from the Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) have been renovating graves, some of which date to the 1800s, in the town’s Long Cross Cemetery with restoration expert Steve Davies.
Mr Davies, who runs the Military Grave Restorer CIC, said he wanted to share his passion for restoring the graves and investigating the stories behind them.
“These guys are going to be leaders of the Navy going forward and I think it’s good for them to look back at who went before them,” he said.
Mr Davies said restoring graves was his “absolute passion” and he was delighted to work with the cadets in Dartmouth.
He said it was their second visit to the cemetery with some of the graves already restored by the team in September 2024.
The cadets said they were pleased to have been part of the restoration project.
Officer Cadet Joy Davey said: “I think it is really nice to get out into the community because the college is such a big presence in the town, it feels good to interact rather than just staying behind the gates.”
She added: “It feels correct to look after the graves and remember them, it gets you thinking about what they would have gone through, obviously you know what you’ve signed up for in this job but to be confronted with it is healthy, I think.”
As part of the project, the cadets also looked into the history of the graves.
One is the resting place of a 13-year-old cadet who died during his first year of training in 1928, but no further information was known about him, including how he died.
The research team found he had fallen from a cliff in Redlap Cove whilst taking photographs a month before his 14th birthday.
These records will now be stored in the BRNC archive.
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