For decades, thousands of families across the UK have carried silent grief for babies they never had the chance to say goodbye to. It is estimated that around 89,000 stillborn infants were buried in unmarked communal graves up to the late 1980s. Families were often told they could not attend the burials, were not told where their babies were laid to rest, and were forbidden from placing any marker or memorial.

I was contacted earlier this year by John from Calne, whose story moved me deeply. John’s sister was stillborn in 1960 at Battle Hospital in Reading. His parents were told almost nothing. There was no birth certificate, no funeral, and no opportunity to say goodbye. Decades later, John began to investigate and discovered that his sister had been buried in a shared, unmarked plot with five other babies in Henley Road Cemetery. He was able to take his father there, but sadly his mother, in poor health, was never able to visit.

John’s experience is heartbreaking, but it is far from unique. For decades, grieving parents were denied the basic compassion of knowing where their children lay. These were not statistics. They were loved and wanted babies whose short lives mattered.