A mum is pleading for the return of memorial items taken from a bench after losing her dad, grandad and uncle within months of each other.
Kellyanne Dooley, 39, told the ECHO the bench in New Brighton, Wirral was bought by her nan and has been her "safe space" and place to remember her lost family members.
This now also includes her nan, Patricia Salmon who died aged 80 in 2019.
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Kellyanne, from the Noctorum said: "We lost my grandad then my uncle and then my dad within 11 months in 2016/17.
"My grandad, George Salmon, died aged 81, just before Christmas in 2016, which was a shock to us all.
"Then in March 2017, my uncle Mark Salmon, who was only 50, died of a heart attack while he was on holiday.
"Then we lost my dad, Paul Young in November 2017, he was 56 and it was a massive shock, he went into hospital and died of mass organ failure after a health battle.
"It was a very difficult time for me and I suffer with anxiety and depression so have often found that taking my self off and driving down to the bench has really helped.
"It is like my safe space, I could sit there for hours. And in lockdown we have learnt to fish over the sea wall from the bench.
"My nan bought the bench because she loved going for fish and chips in New Brighton and now me and my family use it as a way to sit and remember them all."
Kellyanne said the family often marked special occasions and birthdays at the bench by placing balloons and flowers there, but she had also bought four heart-shaped commemorative slates for each of her lost loved ones and placed them on the bench last December.
Earlier this week she was upset to learn they had been removed and now just wants them back.
She said: "I just don't understand who would move them. They are so personal to us and I just want them back, even if I have to drive to go and pick them up.
"I have never been told I can't put things on the bench and they have never disrupted me or anyone I know sitting on the benches, I often sit there.
"And friends have sometimes messaged saying how they stopped for lunch in New Brighton and didn't realise it was my dad's bench till they turned around - so they weren't getting in anyone's way."
The Older People's Parliament who looks after the benches confirmed to the ECHO they would never remove items from the memorial benches.
Although they did state "bench owners are not given permission by us to place anything on the bench other than an original plaque or any additional plaques purchased from Label n Signs in New Brighton to adhere to health and safety, which we take very seriously."
But they added it was a very sensitive and personal issue that needed to be looked at closer in conjunction with Wirral Council.
Kellyanne added: "I just want the slates back because if they were getting in anyone's way, I would have just put them on their graves."
