Neighbour Denise Sealy at the memorial garden

NEIGHBOURS on a Kentish Town estate are at odds over a memorial to a prize-winning gardener.
After Ernie Willing died in 2001 his family replanted his York Rise estate allotment in his memory. It now has a plastic cross and figurines as well as a memorial bench and a flower bed.
But neighbour Denise Sealy, whose ground-floor bedsit looks onto the memorial garden, says she is fed up living next to “a tacky graveyard”.
Managers at St Pancras Housing Association have been called in to settle the dispute after the Willings family refused to discuss the garden with Ms Sealy.
Ms Sealy, 36, a clerk at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, said: “The garden used to be Mr Willing’s allotment. He had several on the estate and kept them so well that he won awards.I never had any problem with him but I wasn’t too happy when they turned it into a memorial.
“I didn’t say anything, though, because it was so soon after his death and I didn’t want to be insensitive. The thing is that nobody asked me if I minded having this outside my window and it is depressing and tacky.”
The Willings have sent her several letters saying their father did a lot for the estate and deserves to be remembered with the garden, but they refused to speak to the New Journal. A spokesman for St Pancras Housing Association said: “We are acting as a mediator to try to resolve this situation.
“The Willings family did ask for permission to turn the allotment into a memorial garden and were given permission, but we do have a problem with the siting of the bench directly beneath Ms Sealy’s window.”