CHURCH officials have ordered grieving relatives to remove hand-made memorials to loved ones because they are considered "inappropriate" for a Worcestershire graveyard.

A noticed posted at the gateway to St James the Great in Norton, near Worcester, warns that any unauthorised memorials still at the graveside by Saturday, November 3, will be destroyed.

Its vicar, the Rev Donald Sloggett, said rules governing churchyards were set by law, not by individual churches.

But angry mourners - who have been told to ditch silk flowers, "homemade crosses", metal and wooden borders and ornaments because they "contravene diocesan regulations" - are digging in their heels.

Gerardo Melillo lost his six-year-old son, Michael, to leukaemia 34 years ago and his wife, Vincenzia, is buried alongside.

In the same week that Michael died, a little boy from Norton was knocked down and killed as he ran to buy ice cream. He is also buried in the churchyard.

"His parents left four breeze blocks on his grave as a memorial before they moved away," Mr Melillo said.

"It made me so sorry I promised myself I'd adopt him.

"So I collected some pebbles from a beach in Falmouth and made them into a little cross.

"I've cut the grass around those graves every week for the past 34 years, and only now they're telling me I've got to take the cross down. There's no way I'm going to do it."

A notice pinned to a stake next to the foot-high cross read: "The PCC regrets the homemade cross does not conform with the churchyard regulations and require it to be moved."

It goes on to apologise for any distress, but finishes: "We need to act before the churchyard becomes unmanageable."

Mr Melillo, of Columbia Drive, Lower Wick, was furious.

"I've come here sometimes to find the grass in the rest of the graveyard so overgrown you can't see the graves. It's disgusting," he fumed.

Another man, who asked not to be named, was tending his in-laws' grave when he found the signs. Two years ago, the family built a small wooden border to stop topsoil, in which flowers were planted, spilling on to the grass. He has had to remove it.

"It's not enough for them to blame Diocesan regulations'," he said.

"Coming here is a pilgrimage for some people - tending their graves is a matter of pride."

"I've come here sometimes to find the grass in the rest of the graveyard so overgrown you can't see the graves. It's disgusting," he fumed.

Another man, who asked not to be named, was tending his in-laws' grave when he found the signs. Two years ago, the family built a small wooden border to stop topsoil, in which flowers were planted, spilling on to the grass. He has had to remove it.

"It's not enough for them to blame Diocesan regulations'," he said.

"Coming here is a pilgrimage for some people - tending their graves is a matter of pride."