Emma Oram is leading the campaign

by Tim Collins

Commemorative stones are now on sale, after the green light was given to create a garden to memorialise babies who have died.

Ashford Borough Council (ABC) has agreed to plans to provide a place where parents and relatives can remember babies who died during or shortly after birth.

The “baby garden”, to be built at the site of the existing memorial garden off Church Road in the town centre, will feature colourful flower beds, a small grass area and two specially-commissioned benches featuring a butterfly and a dove.

It will also incorporate special stones recording the names of babies who have died and, where families wish, the date on which they lost their lives.

These stones will encircle a central mosaic design, featuring the teardrop logo of national charity Stillbirth And Neonatal Deaths (SANDS), which is behind the project.

People from across the borough will have a chance to help create the mosaic at a workshop being held at the Ashford Gateway in late February.

Emma Oram, (pictured top) who lost her baby Liam in 2004, is leading the Chartham branch of the charity, who have raised over £23,000 of the £28,000 needed to make the project a reality.

Emma, 28, said: “In years gone by, often babies were just taken away from their mothers and sometimes parents were not even told whether they had been boys or girls, nor where they had been buried.

“Thankfully, times have changed now, and at least everyone can share this special place, and have a name stone, right in the centre of Ashford, even when their babies died many years ago.

“Having somewhere special like the garden will be so important to everyone who has lost a baby. It will be wonderful to see our babies’ names recorded there forever.”

Work on the site will start in March, to be completed by the early summer.

To order a name stone for a one-off cost of £40, email ashfordbabygarden@hotmail.co.uk or call Chris Twydell on 07912771135.