He was known across Bristol as the man with the allotments, having presented local TV programmes about the delights of growing veg in one.
So when the many friends and family of David Cemlyn came to pay their respects at his funeral in Bristol recently, the only fitting tribute was to cover his coffin not with flowers, but with their best British-grown veg.
It meant the service was more like a harvest festival than a funeral – which is just how David would have wanted it. David was well-known throughout Bristol and the West Country, and was one of those people who was always busy. His brush with TV presenting came in the mid 2000s, on ITV West where he presented a couple of series, including one simply called The Allotment.
But away from the TV spotlight, he was a passionate advocate for communities, and was described as a ‘wonderfully eclectic character’ by his family.
“He was a social worker, voluntary sector pioneer, passionate gardener, climber, archaeologist and campaigner,” said his family tribute. “Above all he was generous, loving and fun. He gave so much to his family, friends and community throughout his life.”
He worked for years around the Barton Hill Settlement and at the University of Bristol outreach project there, as well as at University of the West of England, and as a social worker. In online tributes, one friend Arthur Hook, described him as a ‘sort of modern polymath, a renaissance man.
David Cemlyn, who was a passionate advocate for allotments in Bristol. Attendees at his funeral adorned his coffin with vegetables.(Image: Cemlyn Family)
“He really could turn his hand to all sorts of things and frequently did,” said Arthur, who said they stumbled into setting up an antiques business in the 1990s. “He was already into the internet and into computers,” wrote Arthur. “It didn’t take long before he’d worked out that much of the future of the business would be on line, and that was about ten years before antiques and auctions took off on the internet.”
David Cemlyn was also described by friends as a huge champion of the underdog – at one point many years ago, organising a ‘coup’ of the Barton Hill Settlement so that members of the local community had a greater say in running it.
He troubled the pages of the Bristol Evening Post regularly over the years, with various things – most notably in 2008 when he made global news stories by chaining himself to an old Victorian lamppost near his home in St Andrews, to create a one-man blockade to stop the city council taking it away.
He had overheard one of the council bosses let slip that the lampposts in his road would be refurbished and returned – but to areas of the city that were in a Conservation Area, like Clifton.
David Cemlyn chained himself to a lampost in St Andrews to save it from beinin taken away by the Council – 2008(Image: Jon Kent/Bristol Live)
His impromptu direct action protest in 2008 sparked what was dismissed at the time then and for years later by the city’s elite as a conspiracy theory: that it was a secret council policy to strip most of Bristol of its historic and traditional street architecture – Victorian lampposts, benches, stone slabbed pavements and so on – to maintain the aesthetic of well-to-do areas like Sneyd Park and Clifton.
It wasn’t until a Bristol Live expose of that very policy in action, in 2019, that the policy was outed and eventually reversed, despite continued initial denials.
At the time, David – by then 77 – was delighted. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long. It is 11 years since I chained myself to a lamppost to stop it being taken,” he said back in 2019.
READ MORE: Council suspends lamppost removal programme after row over favouring ‘nicer’ areas of BristolREAD MORE: Man who chained himself to old lamppost to save it welcomes council U-turn – 11 years late
“I can’t believe we’re still talking about lampposts, with all the world’s tragedies, but it’s good, finally, that they’ve made this formal. This is all about our street heritage. It’ll be benches next,” he added.
David passed away after a long illness in February this year, and his funeral recently was well-attended, with people all over the world who couldn’t make it in person sending in their tributes.
Many of the tributes to David Cemlyn mention how much of a ‘pioneer’ he was, constantly coming up with new ideas or challenging the way things have always been done. His daughter Ruth said it was fitting that his coffin was covered in veg instead of flowers – and in the true spirit of David as a pioneer, it’s now something the funeral directors are going to consider suggesting to other families.
David Cemlyn, who was a passionate advocate for allotments in Bristol. Attendees at his funeral adorned his coffin with vegetables.(Image: Cemlyn Family)
“Given his love of growing vegetables, instead of flowers at his funeral, we asked that everyone bring a British grown vegetable to adorn his coffin,” explained Ruth.
“We then donated the veg to a local food bank. We thought this might be an inspiring story for people to think about how something positive can come out of such a sad event,” she added.
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