Meet the man who tends the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Gander

Just outside of Gander, 100 bodies are laid to rest at a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in North America.

Gander resident Dunley Peyton spent his summers as a teenager cutting the grass on the graves, starting when he was 13 years old.

He was employed by his father, a flower shop owner who also did landscaping around the airport.

After spending years among the headstones, Peyton decided to research the history of the people resting there.

"Everyone has a story," he told Central Morning Show host Leigh Anne Power, as he showed her around.

"When you read all the names they're just ordinary, but on the bottom there's the inscription that the family put there. If you read them all it kind of softens you up, because some of them say the name of their wife and daughter waiting for them."

The cemetery includes the graves of 19 people in the Royal Air Force Ferry Command who died when an aircraft crashed near Gander during a snowstorm in 1943.

Some of them say things like, 'He gave his today for your tomorrow,' which I find kind of cuts you right to the bone- Dunley Peyton

There's also the headstone of Joe Gilmore, a rescue pilot from Ireland who died in a crash near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

"Gilmore's headstone is different, because he was awarded an M.B.E. — Member of the British Empire," said Peyton.

Peyton is now making it his mission to pave the half-kilometre of road from the highway to the war graves, so that more people can easily visit the site.

"Some of them say things like, 'He gave his today for your tomorrow,' which I find kind of cuts you right to the bone," said Peyton.

"And it reminds me of what all these people stand for."