In its heyday, Arnos Vale provided direct employment to dozens of people, most of them gardeners and grave-diggers who lived in the industrial suburb growing up around the cemetery.  Many more were employed indirectly, including as monumental masons, florists and, of course undertakers.

Alan Wyatt’s father was one of four monumental masons who shared business premises within a few hundreds yards of the Cemetery. Alan, born in 1936, recalls:

"Although they were in competition, they would always help one another in the way of buying the stone that they worked. Certainly, Dad was importing when the War ended, and before the War, dealing with a company direct in Italy. They imported it in direct from Bristol City Docks. And with the other masons they would have one major order, which would be delivered all in one go, perhaps seven tons in at a time … moving seven tons without mechanical aids is very difficult."

Some worked and lived in the Cemetery itself - in the East and West Lodges, by the main gate, and in a building known as the Top Lodge, near the Cemetery Road entrance, which provided living accommodation for the Cemetery Superintendent and his family.

For some years, the Superintendent was Alfred Utting, who took over the job from his father William. As a young man, Alfred Utting had married Betty Edgell, daughter of the Cemetery foreman, and who lived in the Top Lodge.  So for most of the 20th century the day-to-day management of Arnos Vale was very much a family affair!

You can find out a little more about the Utting and Edgell families and their lives at Arnos Vale from the latest Arnos Vale guidebook, which can be bought from the West Lodge office or by mail or online using the form in Publications. For more oral histories, click here for film clips.