Over 12,000 handmade poppies were destroyed in a fire at a cemetery, which was believed to have been started deliberately.
A group of volunteers in Prescot had crafted the poppies by hand for last year's Remembrance service and had planned to use them again in a display this year. They were stored in a storage container in Prescot Cemetery which went up in flames in the early hours of Thursday (April 14) morning.
Lesley Porter from Friends of Prescot Cemetery & Churchyard told the ECHO that a local resident spotted the fire and rang the fire service. The swift arrival of fire crews ( Prescot Fire Station is 0.2 miles away from the cemetery) meant that the fire did not spread to nearby trees, which Lesley said could have caused 'absolute devastation'.
