A family in Cheshire are using their daily exercise to clean up gravestones at the local cemetery.

Ryan van Emmenis and his children, from Winsford, have cleaned more than 20 gravestones since the coronavirus lockdown began in March.

The idea started when a friend of his posted a picture of his sister’s grave on social media – which Mr van Emmenis saw had become weathered – and offered to go and clean it.

“I thought ‘I can do this more’,” he said. “When I’m out on my walks I pass a couple of churches and there are some really old headstones and tombstones.

“I thought ‘I’ll just take out a little brush, some cleaning products and as I pass when I stop for my little break I’ll have a little drink of my water and do a bit each day’.

“You see results and you’re like ‘oh, this is great’ so I just wanted to keep doing it.”

Mr van Emmenis, who owns a cleaning company, said that each stone takes a different amount of time to clean, but thinks he spends roughly an hour on each one – spread out over three or four visits.

He has since recruited his children – 12-year-old Brooke, Lana, four, and Larsson, three, to share the workload.

“It’s good for the children to learn a little bit of history but also respect their environment,” the 37-year-old said.

“As young as they are, they can still get involved and they can still help. Obviously they don’t do the chemical side of things, but they can do the brushing.

“They’re quite good at it, to be fair.”

Encouraged by his wife, Hayley, he then began to clean headstones in other local graveyards, which were looking a little older.

“You’ve got to be respectful of the fact that it’s someone’s family member, it’s someone’s memories,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure you’re using the right products and you’re being careful and delicate with it.

“Some of these headstones I’m cleaning are over 100 years old. And algae, moss etc can have a really negative impact on them so you’ve got to be really careful.”

He has now linked up with the vicar of a local church to decide which stones to work on.

Since posting photographs online, his work has been shared widely on social media – prompting family members to get in touch and thank him.

He said: “I had some feedback from people saying they were really grateful for what I’d done because it was family members and they hadn’t visited the grave for 20 years, they’d been unable to.

“Someone used the term ‘you’re bringing memories back to people’.

“When a grave is dull and it’s got algae on it and you can’t read it, there’s nobody seems to give it much time if they don’t know the person.

“Once you’ve cleaned up one of these graves, it’s really noticeable, which means people are stopping and taking a moment to read and remember these people.”

Despite having access to products no readily available to the public, Mr van Emmenis says that good old soap and water will do the trick.

“A little bit of patience, care and attention and a soft bristled brush with a bit of soapy water will do a fantastic job,” he said.

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