The true death toll in our borough is still not known, but one thing is for sure is that the numbers are rising and those dying are in danger of becoming nameless and faceless statistics.
The News has always taken seriously the role of paying tribute to those who die in tragic circumstances. Of giving that person a proper write up, despite the terrible or sad means by which they came to their untimely death.
But in this lockdown, and with no real way of getting information about individual lives lost from hospitals, the council or other authorities, we are asking people to get in touch with us.
Every life deserves to be marked, and every person, no matter how ordinary their life might have been, does not deserve to be just a number counted daily on our news site and other sites across the country.
We want to pay tribute to your loved ones and would ask that you get in touch with us, so we can mark their life in your local paper.
Never before in our lifetime have we faced such a horrendous disease.
Never before have so many family and friends been stopped from attending funerals, prevented from mourning and celebrating the life of someone they loved in the usual way.
The paper has always carried family announcements, but this is not about paying for a memorial in the paper, this is about talking to us so we can write up a tribute that shows who these people are and what their lives have meant to those closest to them.
Over the last few weeks we have paid tribute to victims who families have got in touch and have even highlighted people who have passed away from other conditions, but whose families are unable to have the funerals they would have wanted for them – see links below.
- Tributes paid to Camberwell grandad who passed away from coronavirus at King’s College Hospital
- Coronavirus: 98-year-old Blackfriars Nightingale, will be the first to have her service live streamed from the crematorium
On each occasion we promise to write the piece with the family to give them back some sort of control of how their loved one is remembered, at a time when everything else appears to be so out of their control.
Please contact us at editor@southwarknews.co.uk or mobile number 07973175511 and leave a message if you want us to pay tribute to a loved one who passed away with the disease, or in other circumstances and is unable to have everyone attend their funeral. As with 98-year-old Alice Woodgates, her article in the paper allowed more people to know of her passing and because her funeral was live-streamed, many were able to watch it and pay their respects from home.
As a local paper it is our duty to pay respects to those who fall victim to coronavirus – please share this with your friends and family.
With warmest regards
Kevin Quinn
Editor
Latest Tributes:
- Close-knit family mourn loss of Bermondsey’s Maisie Fruen
- Kayla Williams: Fundraiser set up to pay for funeral as bereft husband tells of his agony self isolating in the home where she died
- Tributes paid to ‘bubbly’ Bermondsey man whose sudden death leaves both fiancee and daughter devastated
- Family share heartbreak after being unable to see their mother in her final week
- Bermondsey’s Kathleen Chaplin died of coronavirus, suffering from dementia and in lockdown her family were unable to see her in the weeks before her death
- Tributes paid to Bermondsey legend 91-year-old Bill Brenland
- Bermondsey angel Emma Williams funeral will be live-streamed so friends can pay their respects
- Aged just 34, Terry Coakley battled coronavirus to the bitter end and his family urge local people to abide by the rules
- Bermondsey’s Andy Shelley couldn’t have tried harder to escape the coronavirus