Regarding the gravestone flattening (News Shopper, January 18) my parents and sister share a grave in Staffordshire and last autumn we made our annual visit to clean the headstone and place flowers.

We were dismayed to find the stone on the floor with a note from the Department of Health and Safety telling us it hadn't withstood the maximum pressure.

I saw a small pick-up truck going around the cemetery with headstones on the back. When we visited the office and I asked about these headstones, I was told they belonged to graves where relatives could not be found or where relatives could not afford the expense of stones being secured.

How terrible to have all those graves unidentified.

We visited a nearby mason's office and were shown the steel rod which is drilled through the headstone. We had to pay £150 for this to be done.

This is extreme vandalism in the name of health and safety.

Sylvia Duncan Orpington