A Spanish story

You learn a lot as a funeral celebrant - or you should. You hear so many stories. I've conducted funerals for people of all ages, from stillborn babies to a centenarian, and from all backgrounds. Today I did a funeral for a man who'd been born on the North West coast of Spain in the 1930s. His wife and daughters told me what they remembered and what they'd been told about his childhood. I did a little research, and this is how I began . . .

Joel was born in La Coruña in Galicia, on the coast of North West Spain, seventy-seven years ago; not a good time to be Spanish. He was only a toddler when the Spanish Civil War broke out. It’s been estimated that half a million Spaniards died during the war, which left Spain impoverished and unable to support Hitler during the Second World War, in return for Hitler’s support of Franco. When Franco came to power in 1939, thousands of the country’s professional people, who’d supported the Republic, had fled into exile, leaving a severe shortage of doctors and nurses, among others. This, and the fact that an effective antibiotic treatment for TB, streptomycin, was only administered for the first time in 1944, meant that when Joel’s parents contracted the disease, the odds were against their survival. They died when he was only eleven or twelve.

Until today, I've never given much thought to the Spanish Civil War. I knew about the International Brigade who'd gone to help the Republicans fight the Nationalists, and I knew that Laurie Lee, author of one of my favourite books, Cider with Rosie, went out to join them and was almost killed for his idealism. I wonder how much Joel's grandchildren (I've changed his name, by the way) knew about his early life? Will they be sufficiently curious to find out more? Their lives, in comfortable homes in a quiet English country town, are very different to his. I wonder how many stories are lost because no one is sufficiently interested to record them?

Photo: A book-burning in La Coruña in 1936 (Quema de libros en A Coruña 1936. Los que gritaban! Muera la inteligencia!)

"Death is very likely the single best invention of Life"

Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea who Steve Jobs was. I've never owned any of his products. I heard stuff about him on TV programmes like the BBC's Click, and read about him on Twitter and Facebook. Then last night people started tweeting about "Steve" dying, and I asked "Steve who?" What was all the fuss about?

I'm only just realising what a clever, charismatic man he was. I like the sound of him, especially the fact that he did things his way, not the conventional way. This morning, I read a speech he made in 2005, and liked the sound of him even more. He mentions The Whole Earth Catalogue. I have a battered copy. Somewhere in there an anonymous person is quoted saying something like, "The trouble with being ahead of your time is that when people catch up with you, they'll say it was obvious all along." My path's ended up in a bit of a cul-de-sac, for reasons beyond my control, by my son has followed an unconventional path too, and I think it's the right one.

This is from Steve's speech:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

All true.

-----------------------

Postscript:
After reading Christina Patterson's column today (17 December), I've noted that Jobs had feet of clay, like many clever and successful people. His words may have been inspiring but his actions were sometimes less so.

Make a will with Will Aid

If you haven't made a will, November's a good time to do it. Local solicitors are writing wills for charity. Click here to find out what to do.

Portrait of a dead child

I came across this in the Radio Times, in an article about ceramics for the Handmade in Britain series that starts next week (9pm on 10 October, BBC Four). It's a portrait of Lydia Dwight by her father John, made in 1674 in his Fulham pottery. It's in the V & A. I must look for it the next time I'm there. It's beautiful and sad.

Religion lite funerals, or pick 'n' mixes

The subject's been aired here before, and it's been aired again on Gloriamundi's blog; is it OK for humanist celebrants to conduct funerals that include a bit of religion?

When I wrote previously that I won't include any religion in my funerals, though I take pains to avoid clients who expect me to, one of the comments I attracted was,

"With respect, I have to say I disagree with the rigidity of the approach. Human being are not totally rational or consistent. Hymns, music, poetry - isn't there an element of artistic license here? We might enjoy a particular hymn without for a minute believing literally what the words say. Also, isn't a funeral officiant by definition dealing with people who have been bereaved? Surely there's a case for some compassion, so that if a client says: We want a humanist funeral in general, yes, but this particular hymn would help some members of the family come to terms with their grief - this could be accommodated. I'm sorry if this puts me beyond the pale as far as the BHA is concerned (I am a member). I would want some George Herbert at my own funeral (in the unlikely event of there being anyone around with an interest in arranging a funeral for me) although I am a committed atheist and humanist."

A "pal" of Gloria's has been quoted on her blog,

"I've come to think that the beliefs of the celebrant should be of no great importance in deciding the best kind of funeral for a family.

"We have what seems to me a historically unique opportunity to develop and deliver new kinds of funeral ceremonies for people of any or no faith, who don’t want a “church/mosque/temple” funeral but who still may have elements of religious belief, spiritual need, superstitions if you like. Many or most of the families I’ve worked with are not humanists, atheists or agnostics in any collected sort of way. Shades of belief, requests for hymns and the occasional prayer seem to me all part of the job. I feel we should be expert ritualists, not belief-advancers. And of course I’m more than happy to take a ceremony which is entirely atheistical."

Isn't it interesting that when this subject is raised, by "religion", most people mean Christianity? The British are remarkably casual about Christianity. Last September, Julian Glover wrote in the Guardian that the typical Briton is a "fuzzy believer", which has always been my impression. Their fuzzy belief is fuzzy Christianity, since we live in a culturally Christian country. People pick and choose the bits of Christianity they like and ignore the rest. So they go for the Christmas and Easter myths (both hijacked from earlier Pagan ones), they like to think that being Christian means you're essentially a good person, and even if they say they're not very religious, they still imagine that there's some sort of life after death (an idea that I find deeply unattractive) where they'll be reunited with their loved ones. Most nominal Christians would have a hard time explaining what the church teaches about virgin birth, resurrection, original sin, and so on. They never go to church, except for the occasional wedding or funeral, and most never say their prayers.

You don't hear about requests for a bit of Sikhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism or Jainism to be included in a "humanist" funeral. That's because the followers of these faiths mostly take their religion seriously and expect the people who lead their rite of passage rituals to do so as well. Nor should you expect a Jain to conduct a funeral with a bit of Islam thrown in, or a Sikh to stand in for a Zoroastrian. I'm not willing to utter religious words or phrases, or to sing Christian hymns, because I think that you should only do so if you actually believe in these things.

This isn't just about being a humanist, which isn't a belief system equivalent to a religion.  It's about integrity. If I say things I don't believe, it's an insult to the people who do. I have no problem with a religious minister, or anyone else, conducting a non-religious funeral. All he or she would be doing is what I do - leaving religion out of it. I don't think that I, or any other celebrant, has any claim on the non-religious market (for want of a better word), though the BHA seems to think it has. A few years ago I was approached by an Anglican hospice chaplain who wanted to know if he should train as a humanist celebrant because sometimes atheist patients' families asked him to officiate at their funerals. I told him no, because he wasn't a humanist  and because he was already an experienced officiant. I didn't regard him as a threat and understood why some families would want someone they regarded as a friend to help them.

When I first started conducting funerals, over twenty years ago, I was the only non-religious celebrant in Suffolk and N E Essex. Now there's a much wider choice; not just other humanists (some genuine, some not), but Civil celebrants, who are willing to sing hymns, etc., and others whose personal beliefs we never know, who are willing to do what one funeral director I know calls "hybrid" funerals. An increasing number of people are choosing vaguely Christian funerals without any liturgy, with hymns and references to an afterlife. That's fine. Just don't expect me to do them. If you call yourself a humanist and you're willing to compromise your lack of faith to meet demand for this sort of work (I know of one who's told funeral directors that he'll do "anything the client wants"), I'm sorry, but that's not humanism.

Humanism isn't a belief system, like religion. It's a way of thinking based on our uniquely human experience, without superstition or supernaturalism. It's for independent thinkers, or freethinkers, who look for comfort to other human beings, not silly stories that don't bear close examination. As human beings, we are all capable of love, of empathy, of understanding (though that often takes effort). I pride myself on being able to demonstrate that you don't need religion for a funeral that will leave mourners feeling that they've done right by their loved ones, and that they'll leave feeling better, not worse, for the experience.

Photo: Crematorium between funerals, after the crucifix had been removed for a humanist ceremony.

The dead outnumber the living, and they take up a lot of space

Despite rumours to the contrary, the dead outnumber the living. Until the Cremation Act of 1902, most people in the UK were buried. Since then, the number of cremations has crept up. In 1968, the number of cremations exceeded burials for the first time. Now, 70% of funerals are held at crematoriums.

Cremation was first introduced, against considerable opposition, as a hygienic method of disposal and a solution to the problem of over-crowded municipal cemeteries in conurbations. Some people keep ashes on their mantelpiece, but most either bury or scatter them. Scattering has led to problems, so that the government had to bring in new anti-pollution rules. Meanwhile, space for burials is still running out. However you look at it, and many would prefer not to, the problem can only get bigger. Trouble is that whenever the prospect of reusing graves is mentioned, bereaved relatives get very het up about it. Lucy Townsend has written a piece for the BBC News Magazine about the subject:

This situation is not universal. In some countries a more pragmatic approach to human remains means they have largely avoided the overcrowding issue.

In Germany, graves are reused after only 30 years, the existing remains usually being exhumed and cremated. In Australia and New Zealand, "dig and deepen" is carried out in urban areas as a matter of routine.

Tim Morris, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, says it is time to change tack.

"It's a no-brainer," he says. "Re-use is common in lots of other countries, and was common practice in the UK until the 1850s."

Resistance to change is usual - people will refer to "traditions" that are only decades old - but when it comes to death, resistance can be expressed very emotionally and politicians will hesitate to confront it. However unpopular it is, they're going to have to.

You can't take it with you - or can you?

It's been a tradition in many cultures for gifts to be given to the dead, to be buried with them. Egyptian tombs were filled with everything a god king could want, to ensure a comfortable afterlife. The Anglo-Saxon king buried at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk had some lovely treasure buried with him. Nowadays, it's less likely that items of great value will be buried or cremated with people's remains, but I have heard of funeral directors searching coffins after someone had been to view a corpse, when they suspected that something might have been secreted under the covers. A bottle of scotch, for example, isn't something you want to end up in a cremator. In some cultures, it's expected that someone's creditors will settle their debts in coin, to be placed in the coffin. I was told that one family didn't appreciate it when a creditor tried to put a cheque in the coffin.

Due to a misunderstanding, I was once asked to officiate at a Chinese funeral. They really didn't need me at all, I realised. Communication was very difficult, as most of them spoke no English. After a brief ceremony in the crematorium chapel, the main ceremony was at the graveside, where a generous amount of paper money was burnt. I don't remember much about it, but do remember that the money wasn't real. You can buy all sorts of paper imitations of money and other goods for Chinese funerals. It seems that the New York police aren't very culturally aware, since one of them arrested a Chinese shopkeeper for selling an obviously fake $20 cardboard handbag that wouldn't fool anyone who was looking for a genuine Burberry bag. Poor Mr Wing Sun Mak was charged with two counts of copyright infringement in the third degree. Stupid policemen.

The store, Fook On Sing Funeral Supplies, on Mulberry Street along what is known in Chinatown as Funeral Row, sells traditional objects of mourning, mostly copies of luxury objects. The items are made of cardboard, paper and plastic, to be used at funerals as symbolic gifts for the deceased. The cardboard models are burned as part of traditional Chinese funeral practices.

The store sells a cardboard mansion for $400 and a cardboard flat-screen television for $40. There are stacks of money ($10,000 bills) for sale, as well as miniature sports cars, cellphones, double-breasted suits and even smiling dolls to act as servants in the hereafter.

“When people die, they feel they are going to need things in the next world,” explained one of the store’s owners, Amy Mak-Chan, who is the arrested man’s aunt. “They might want a car and a house and other nice things. People buy these things here, to give them as gifts at the funeral.”

In Northern Thailand, Chinese funeral offerings don't seem to include Gucci handbags.

The paper offerings represent objects, animals or people that the deceased liked, and burning them ensures they will reach the deceased in the after-world.­

The new crematorium

The new crematorium, a set on Flickr.

The new crematorium just outside Ipswich has been open for nearly a year and is increasingly popular. Some might say that "popular" isn't a good word for a crematorium, but since you've got to have funerals, they may as well be in a pleasant venue.

One feature is the extra-large cremator, which means that very big bodies no longer have to be driven miles from here for disposal.

They had an open day recently, to "dispel myths", where they sold cream teas to raise money for the children's hospice.

Funeral Song

From Richard Laviolette & The Oil Spills, via The Daily Undertaker, who says "Richard Laviolette is obviously one of many who feel that traditional funeral services are no longer relevant to their lives and values."

I'm raising money for Shelterbox

Can you help? Shelterbox sends essential life-saving equipment to disaster areas, like Haiti, Pakistan and Japan. I'm aiming to raise four boxes at £590 each, that's £2360, with a sponsored slim. Click on the badge to find out how to donate. Thank you.

How to die

There are some cuttings tucked into my battered copy of The Oxford Book of Death (recommended, by the way). This fell out when I was looking for something today. I especially liked the bit about leaving something that doesn't exist to a greedy relative, so s/he spends the rest of his/her life looking for it. Yes, that's a bit mean, I know. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Co-op Funeralcare report on major changes in funeral customs

The Co-op's new report makes interesting reading. It says that, among other things, "over half of today's funerals are a celebration of a life." I don't think it would be unreasonable to say that this trend was begun by Humanist celebrants, myself included, who were the only people providing alternatives to traditional Christian funerals before other people cottoned on to the demand, about twenty years ago.

Ghost urns

No reason why you can't raise a smile after you're dead. These prototype ghost urns by Anna Marinenko might do just that. I'd have one. Would you?

Click here for more information.

They reminded me of a poem by Lorna Wood:

To a descendant

I shall not be an importunate, nagging ghost,
Sighing for unsaid prayers: or a family spectre
Advertising that someone is due to join me…
Nor one who has to be exorcised by the Rector.

I shall not be the commercial type of ghost,
Pointing to boxes of gold under the floor
And I certainly don’t intend to jangle chains
Or carry my head… (such a gruesome type of chore!)

I shall not cause draughts, be noisy, spoil your ‘let’, ―
In fact, to be brief, I shan’t materialise.
But I shall be pleased if anyone ever sees me
In your face or your walk or the glance of your laughing eyes.

Death at Christmas

I'm told that the suicide rate goes up over Christmas, as people who are already depressed imagine that everyone else is having a wonderful time. Then there are car accidents and drink-related deaths. There will have been more of the former this holiday, because of the bad weather. But most deaths over the holiday period will probably have been older people who died in their beds, either at home or in hospital. As Shakespeare wrote, in Hamlet,

If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

But how many are ready? Especially at Christmas? Sometimes, people seem to feel cheated because a close relative or friend has died at, or just before, Christmas, so that he or she wasn't able to share the festivities. It's not supposed to happen, they seem to think.

My mum died on Christmas Eve, twenty years ago, a few minutes after she'd demonstrated how to do the can-can to some children at my sister's party. She was very proud of the fact that she could still kick her own height in her seventies, something that I couldn't do in my forties. I apologise if you've heard this story before, but it's a good story. It was a cerebral haemorrhage, they said, all over in minutes. I remember the egg-shaped bruise on her forehead, from where she fell, and thinking that I was glad she couldn't feel it, or it would be sore. We sat on either side of her, in A & E, my son and I, waiting for the police to turn up, as they do when there's a sudden death, and it seemed very quiet. It probably got rowdier later, when the pubs shut. One of the policemen was a special constable who fought back tears when he heard our story because, he said, his mum had died in similar circumstances just a few years earlier. I felt like comforting him.

We came home via Mum's house, to collect her dog, and went to bed. Christmas was a bit of a quiet anti-climax after that, spent with some friends. I thought about it last week after I'd spent three hours with a newly bereaved woman in her eighties, whose husband had died suddenly. She didn't know what to do with herself, and insisted on making me a cheese sandwich, in case I was hungry. Later, on the phone, she apologised for not cooking me a meal. She had to be doing something. It was too quiet. There have been several like her that I've befriended and then did their funerals, within a year. Those sort of friendships don't last long.

Hope I haven't put a dampener on your New Year. The moral of these stories is that death can come at any time, whether it's Christmas or not, so make the most of life.

Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Be wise, strain the wine; and since life is brief, prune back far-reaching hopes! Even while we speak, envious time has passed: pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow!

Horace, 65-8BC

If you haven't already done so, make a will

I met someone at a party last night who was recently bereaved. Her distress was compounded by the fact that her partner hadn't made a will and as they weren't married, she has a complicated mess to sort out. Presumably they shared a home. I didn't ask the details, but it's not certain that she'll be able to continue living in it. During this conversation, it emerged that our host hadn't made a will either. He's not alone; I've read varying estimates of the proportion of British people who haven't make wills; it's a staggering number, between half and two thirds of the adult population. I've written about this sort of thing before.

One case that I remember involved a wealthy Suffolk woman who'd told her friends that she wanted her estate to go to an animal welfare charity; she was a childless cat-lover with no immediate family. Later, it emerged that because she hadn't actually got around to making a will, her entire estate went to the state and the pussy-cats got nothing.

Whenever I've interviewed parents about baby-naming ceremonies, I've always advised them to make wills - one each. Most young people probably imagine that they don't need to think about it, but if you have children, even if you have hardly any money, you can name the people who'll be your children's guardians in the event of your deaths. Suppose you were both wiped out in the same car accident? Who would be the best people to be responsible for your children until they come of age? Your closest relatives may not be the best choice. If you have a baby-naming ceremony, the mentors (the non-religious equivalent of god-parents) can be the same people you've named as the child's guardians.

I first made a will when my son was a baby and it's been updated two or three times since, most recently to bequeath my body to the anatomists at Cambridge university, so that the medical students can make use of it. My solicitor has a copy, and there's one in a fire-proof box at home. No one will have any trouble sorting out who gets what when I'm dead.

You can make a will just by buying a legal-looking form and filling it in yourself, with a couple of people acting as witnesses, but this is risky - too often, mistakes are made that renders the will invalid. There are will-writing firms who advertise online and in the press, but treat them with caution. A friend tried one once, to update her will, and after they'd hung on to her most important documents for months without producing a will, she had to threaten legal action to retrieve them. The best approach is to use a solicitor. If your will isn't complicated, the fee won't be high. If you don't know where to find a solicitor who deals with probate and wills, ask the CAB.

Read about making a will on the Law Society's website
Read what happens if you don't make a will

Leave my funeral until I'm dead, thanks

Leaving parties, when everyone's signed a card and you all stand around clutching drinks while people say things that may or may not be true about you, can be horribly embarrassing. The thought of attending one that's meant to be a funeral, only before you're dead, doesn't appeal to me at all. OK, have a party - I know a couple of people who've done that because they didn't want to miss the one that would otherwise be held after the funeral - but not a funeral, please. I really don't want to be there. I don't want to hear what people might say about me, and not just because some of it may not be complimentary. I'm really not so keen on funerals that I want to attend my own.

However, it seems that some people think it's a good idea, the people at Saltcote Place in Rye among them, but they would, wouldn't they? They're offering their venue, for a fee, for such events. Among other things, they say,

Such a funeral can be arranged to fit the needs of all the family members and friends as well as the deceased-apparent. For example, his or her family members and friends will be able to attend this pre-arranged funeral if it is scheduled so no one will be caught while on an out-of-town business trip or vacation.

Oh well, we wouldn't want to inconvenience anyone by dying while they're in the middle of a holiday, would we? Sorry, but if I'm dying, it's likely that the last thing on my mind will be your holiday plans, and if people say I was a selfish old bag at my funeral (that's if they give me one), I won't be there to hear it.

The Orwell Bridge

I've conducted several funerals with connections to this bridge, which was opened in 1982 to carry the A45 (now the A14) over the River Orwell at Ipswich. I've driven over it hundreds of times.

One funeral was for someone I knew; a very interesting man who'd been a member of the council responsible for commissioning its construction. He was proud of the curved arch in the middle, which was his suggestion. He thought it added something, aesthetically. Another funeral was for an engineer who was involved in its construction. He was equally proud of the bridge.

Sadly, many people around here associate the bridge with suicides. It's been a magnet for depressed people since it opened, the latest only a few weeks ago. I remember conducting the funeral for a young man who'd been plagued by mental illness for years. His family had been happy that he seemed to have responded to treatment, and was planning to spend some time with friends in Spain. They waved goodbye at the door of their home, after he'd refused the offer of a lift to the airport, oblivious to the fact that it was all an act. He went to the bridge and jumped over the low wall at the top, just as a school bus full of children was going past. They all needed counselling afterwards, including the driver.

I was reminded of this the other day, when I noticed that there was a TV programme about suicides on London Underground, and their consequences. I couldn't bring myself to watch it. When I was a relative funerals novice, I shared a car with a young man who'd gone to work for a funeral director after he left school. He was glad to have the job, he said, because several of his friends were unemployed. I asked if he enjoyed it. He replied that he did, most of the time. One thing he didn't enjoy was walking along a railway line, gathering the body parts of a suicide. Suicides are notoriously oblivious to the effect that their actions have on other people.

Postscript - 22/2/2011: The Orwell jumpers don't always succeed.

Photograph from Wikimedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

More on the theme of "What creative uses can you think of for your cremains?"

Apparently, an artist has used a 3D printer to turn human ashes into objects. Fascinating. Only, what's a 3D printer? Mine is 3-dimensional. If I had a 2-dimensional one, it'd take up far less space in my already cluttered office. Or is it just that it makes things 3D? How? Magic? Must be.

Anyhow. If I was to be turned into a 3D object for my loved ones to keep on the mantelpiece, instead of a boring old urn, what should it be? Tray with a mug of tea and a slice of toast, plus crumbs? Jar of marmalade, plus spoon? Are you sensing a theme here?

Don't bother painting my coffin, thanks

You might expect someone like me (a trained artist, and all that) to get excited about beautifully decorated coffins, but I don't. I suppose that having one standing in the corner of your living room as a memento mori and conversation piece might be interesting, if you have room, but why commission someone to spend hours creating a work of art that will be either buried or cremated with you? Seems such a waste, not to mention a sort of post-mortem showing off.

No thanks. I'd rather that my dearly beloved commissioned something that they like to hang on the wall or stand in the garden, and buy the cheapest environmentally-friendly coffin for my remains. It's only going to keep me tidy in transit.

Paying for an elegant headstone's another matter, if you really want one. At least they'll last.

Image - coffin design by Simon Wild from The Happy Journey Collective

Begrutten

One of the people I follow on Twitter is Lindsey Mason, who writes a column for the STV website. Lindsey (tigerbaps on Twitter) is usually very funny, but her latest column has a more sombre tone. It's about what she told her daughters about their dad, who died when the eldest was six.

Lindsey wrote,

Hannah is the image of her dad, right enough. She even has mannerisms of his that she couldn’t possibly have known about. Sometimes I look at her and she’s chewing the side of her mouth the way he used to do when he was concentrating on something and it makes my heart leap. I said earlier that I don’t believe in life after death, but in a way I do, because I just need to look at Rachael and Hannah and there he is, looking right back at me. I’ve always felt that Hannah was searching for her dad. Searching for some forgotten memory or some vital piece of information that I’ve missed out about him that would make her unlock a memory. But the truth is, she IS the something she’s searching for. She IS her dad. She can’t escape that. It makes me feel good.

You can read the whole thing on the STV website, where you'll learn what "begrutten" means. I recommend reading Lindsey's other columns too.

Getting it right

Just been reading Gloriamundi's latest blog post, about whether to choose burial or cremation. I've left instructions with the anatomists that they should bury what's left of me when they've no further use for it, assuming they accept my body bequest in the first place.

Gloriamundi asks, "What price on getting such things right?" Trouble is, things don't always go right. Sometimes it's someone's fault, sometimes it's not. As long as things haven't gone horribly wrong, whatever happened might become part of a family's story, told and retold, about the day you buried Dad, or Gran, or whoever, while you wonder what he or she would have said about it.

There's a green burial site near here where I've conducted a few funerals. One was for a man whose family had prepared a celebration around his grave, with anecdotes, tearful goodbyes, lovely poems, and gentle jokes about his idiosyncrasies. It was to end with an Irish piper, a friend of the family, playing a lament as the coffin was lowered. I said the words of committal, the piper started to play, and the bearers started to lower the coffin. It was a rectangular cardboard coffin, not tapered as most coffins are, and it soon became evident that the grave wasn't big enough. There was a lot of fiddling about and suppressed huffing and puffing, but it was no use; the coffin was stuck. As the piper continued to play, the bearers had to give up and leave it wedged in place at a wonky angle. I don't remember what I said, but everyone laughed and exclaimed that he'd have enjoyed the joke, before they drifted away. An embarrassed funeral director, who had a reputation for making mistakes, stood looking at the coffin. He'd supervised the grave-digging and supplied the coffin, so he couldn't blame anyone else. Maybe he ought to buy a new tape measure, I suggested. He didn't answer.

That was a case of human error. On other occasions, things have gone wrong for reasons beyond anyone's control. Snow, rain and wind can all play a part in funeral ceremonies. There's not much you can do about any of them. Just wear sensible shoes, and hope for the best.

Portraits of the dead

I go to the BP Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery every year. My son agrees with me that the standard keeps getting higher. It will be interesting to see Daphne Todd's portrait of her mother this year. It was painted after death. Annie Mary Todd was a hundred years old and her dead body is as you'd expect - emaciated and worn out, an empty shell.

There will be people who'd prefer not to see it; the fear of death is common and they'd rather not be reminded of it. Some will be repelled, others fascinated. Mrs Todd agreed to be painted after she'd died, so this isn't posthumous exploitation.

Posthumous portraits were once quite common, though they were usually painted to show an idealised version of a deathbed scene. When Sir Kenelm Digby's wife Venetia died in 1633, he sent for his friend the artist Sir Anthony Van Dyck to draw her. Seven week's later, he finished this portrait, which "played an important role in Kenhelm's mourning" (from Death in England, ed. Peter C Jupp & Clare Gittings).

I've drawn a relative on her deathbed at the hospice. I've also drawn dead babies for bereaved parents. They were invited by hospital staff to hold their baby and have his or her photograph taken, but the photos of a tiny premature scrap weren't suitable to show in a frame on their mantelpiece. Pencil drawings, without the livid colour of the tiny bodies, was a gentler way to remember them. I don't charge for them.

Memento mori

Gloriously dead, originally uploaded by Nad.

From a Flickr set by Nad (see previous post). Recommend viewing by slide show.

Playboy

From a report of a trial in the Willesden & Brent Times, October 8th, 2009:

Leon Labastide, 21, known as 'Playboy' ... was shot in the back and found dying by his mother on May 23rd, 2004.

I've done funerals for murder victims but, so far, gang warfare hasn't spread to rural Suffolk.

Photographs by Nad.

Nike headstone

Found on the Interweb today - a photo of a funeral director's window in Birkenhead.

White chrysanthemums

White chrysanthemums are popular with funeral florists, who use them to spell out tributes for "MUM", "DAD", and various other names or relationships.

Some funeral flower facts for you:

White chrysanthemums are associated with funerals in Eastern Europe and in China, Japan and Korea.

Floral tributes became popular here from the 19th century, partly for their symbolism, but also because they were used, with aromatic herbs like rosemary, to try to hide the smell of putrescent bodies.

After the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, it became increasingly popular to lay floral tributes for strangers at the site of car accidents, murders and disasters. The florists did very well out of Diana Princess of Wales' funeral, when thousands of flowers were heaped in the streets of London.

Some of the nicest floral tributes I've seen were informal ones that had been picked from mourners' own gardens. White chrysanthemums don't lend themselves to informality.

It's time to re-educate the funeral directors, again

Funeral arrangers are the people in a funeral director's office who interview clients and make the arrangements. They're the ones who contact us to ask if we'll do a funeral for a client who doesn't want a religious ceremony. At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

We send all the funeral directors in our area a newsletter every year or so, to inform them about our service and remind them what we will or won't do. With staff changes, some need re-educating periodically.

One of our biggest problems is the arrangers who book a venue (such-and-such a crematorium at 11am on Tuesday, say) before they contact us. When it's a fait accompli, there's not much we can do if all of us are already committed elsewhere. There've been times when I've had to tell an arranger, sorry - we can't help you.

Then there are the ones who don't really understand what a humanist funeral is. Their client might have said that they don't want a religious funeral, but they still choose to sing hymns, for example. I've known clients say, "But it's not really religious, is it?" about Abide with Me, Jerusalem, or Morning has Broken. Don't they ever listen to the words? If the arranger is doing his or her job properly, he or she should know better than to steer people like that in our direction. They need a civil celebrant, who's not much fussed about what we call "pick 'n mix" funerals, or one of the many freelance celebrants who'll do the same.

This morning I had an email from an arranger who'd asked me to do a funeral a few days ago. I'd queried whether the client had chosen any music. The email listed four hymns! I spoke to the client on Tuesday. I asked, "You do understand that I provide a funeral that's totally free from religion, don't you? No hymns, prayers, religious readings, or references to an afterlife?" "Yes," he said, "that's what we want. Mum wasn't religious." I haven't been able to get hold of him again today, so far, but what seems to have happened is that the arranger has handed him a list of recorded music and said, "You can choose from this." Not appreciating that they can have anything they want (and I mean anything - the new Wesley system means access to an almost unlimited number of recordings), the client opted for the hymns because he thought that was usual, or didn't have a clue what he wanted.

Meanwhile, I've been backed into a corner by another client, who insists that we sing Jerusalem because her husband loved the song. I can see that this is going to be one of those weeks.

An ironical choice of music

A funeral client, arranging her Welsh aunt's funeral, chose 'Land of my Fathers' to play us out at the end. I don't think she saw the irony; her aunt was illegitimate.

After reading the above, a celebrant friend wrote that she'd conducted a funeral for a young man "of heroic proportions" -

He weighed well over twenty stone. He was carried in by his mates to the old '70s Hollies' hit, "He ain't heavy he's my brother". Six of them carried him in, staggering, sweating and wobbling all over the place.

Mr Deity & Death

Click here for more Mr Deity videos.

Manners maketh man (or woman)

Supposing you were bereaved in tragic circumstances. Supposing you received condolence cards and letters (as most people do), and one was from a local person you didn't know very well. He might have felt compelled to write because he'd been bereaved himself, and wanted to express his sympathy, as people do.

The letter contained spelling mistakes, it was untidy, it misspelled your surname. Would you post in on the parish noticeboard with the errors marked in red? Would you tell everyone you knew about it, and humiliate its author?

Of course not. Only a bad-mannered, socially inept person would do something like that. No one who knew what you'd done would ever want to write to you again.

You've got to laugh

I heard a good story yesterday, told by a woman who used to work for a London funeral director. She lived above the shop.

A neighbour was bereaved. Instead of going to the funeral director where my friend worked, she walked past and went to another firm, a few streets away. The funeral arranger there was curious, and asked her why she hadn't gone to the nearest business.

"Well," she said, "I've walked past there many times and heard them laughing around the back. I don't think that's very respectful."

"Mrs Brown," said the funeral arranger, "if you walk around the back of our premises and listen at the door you'll often hear the staff laughing and joking. They deal with sadness and tragedy every day. If they were constantly gloomy and miserable and didn't laugh together, it wouldn't be good for them."

Mrs Brown admitted she hadn't thought of that.

In my experience, the popular perception of people in the funeral business being straight-faced and gloomy is false. Funeral firms' staff, crematorium and cemetery staff, all have to be serious when they're on duty. When they're not on duty, they're often very funny. I just wish that some of them wouldn't make me laugh before I do a funeral, so I have to go into the vestry and compose myself, but I'll enjoy a laugh with them afterwards.

The photograph, taken in 1901 by Sir Benjamin Stone, is of two funeral mutes. Mutes were hired to lead funeral processions, looking suitably gloomy. I suppose that if you had a naturally lugubrious expression, you might have been in demand. I bet they enjoyed a laugh when the funeral was over.

______________

Sample joke from one of my friends from the Co-op:

A man walked through a cemetery late one night and heard tapping. He went to see where the noise was coming from and found a man on his knees in front of a headstone with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at the stone. "It's a bit late to be working mate, isn't it?" he asked. The man with the chisel carried on carving for a bit, then said, "They got my name wrong."

It's the way you tell them.

They're not doing it his way

When Father Ed Tomlinson of St Barnabas's, Tunbridge Wells, complained in his blog that he has

"... stood at the Crem like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present at the funeral of somebody led in by the tunes of Tina Turner, summed up in pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets and sent into the furnace with ‘I did it my way’ blaring out across the speakers!"

he probably didn't expect the negative publicity. His comments were reported in the local and national press, leading to criticisms that he was "insensitive" and "heartless".

Ed doesn't get it. Why would anyone want to have a personalised funeral ceremony, when he can offer "the gorgeous liturgy of the requiem mass"? That's just it, Father Ed. Ask most people who're rejecting the "gorgeous liturgy" option and they'll say that they've been to a funeral where the priest talked about God and Jesus but said hardly anything about their dear departed; certainly nothing that they recognised. "It could have been for anyone," they'll say, or, "I wondered if I'd come to the right funeral; I didn't know who he was talking about."

Father Ed despairs of hearing "My Way" blasting out of the crematorium speakers; I sympathise. It is very popular. Having heard it many, many times, I groan inwardly when anyone asks for it. However, as long as no one asks for "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam", I'll cope.

Father Ed thinks that his parishioners don't know what's good for them and he does. He says,

I know that ‘dwindling funeral syndrome’ is the shared experience of most every priest I speak to, save those served by undertakers of genuine faith or respect.

Does he mean that "undertakers of genuine faith or respect" should ignore their clients' wishes and point them in his direction anyway? I know some do, and if their client is determined to have a non-religious funeral they might give in very grudgingly.

Father Ed seems to think that Humanist funerals are inferior to his liturgical ones, but he probably hasn't been to many, if any (I've known priests turn up at Humanist funerals, exuding disapproval). There are rubbish Humanist funerals, and some great religious ones. No one has a monopoly of quality, but many families will say that the Humanist funeral they'd arranged was satisfying, honest, and moving; that it reflected the life and personality of the person who died without cloying sentiment; that it made them laugh and cry. And, Father Ed, contrary to what you might believe, we don't all do it for the money.

But he won't care. Father Ed is from the patriarchal, "we know best" Church tendency that can't understand why its authority is dwindling, fast. He'll sulk and sulk.

He wrote that when he dies, "I will still have the gorgeous liturgy of the requiem mass to look forward to." Pity he won't be there to enjoy it.

Josef

One of the things that Richard Wilson discussed on last night's 'Two Feet in the Grave' TV programme was post-mortem photography. The Victorians took photographs of dead people, posed to look natural, such as a dead child propped up in a chair, surrounded by her dolls.

I bought this small photograph last week from a dealer. It shows a dead man in a coffin, which is supported by two chairs. The coffin sides don't seem very high, but maybe it was the fashion, wherever he came from, to have a deep lid. On the back is inscribed his name - Josef. I can't read his surname. The inscription's in German. It looks early 20th century. I wonder who he was, and what his story was?

Two Feet in the Grave

You have 5 days left to watch this programme on i-Player - recommended.

Click here for the OU/BBC Death & Dying page.

What to do with big people?

In case you were wondering, "big" is a euphemism for "fat" - very fat. There are more very fat people than ever these days, and when they die, that can cause problems.

Years ago, I knew someone who'd worked as a post-war hospital porter. He worked nights, when there weren't enough staff, and was asked to move a corpse from one of the floors above ground level when the lift wasn't working. There was no one to help him, it was a large body, so he stood at the top of a flight of stairs (concrete, with dark tiles on the walls on one side) and pondered. Reasoning that the guy was dead, so he wouldn't know anything about it, he rolled the body to the ground floor. I don't remember how he got him off the floor at the bottom. If it had been a lightweight corpse, he'd have been able to sling it over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, but it weighed at least 20 stone.

Nowadays, mortuaries, funeral directors, crematorium staff and others have to deal with corpses weighing much more than that - in some cases, over twice as heavy. In our area, none of the cremators are big enough to take very big bodies, so they have to be taken to a crematorium miles away. There are plans to build a new, privately-owned crematorium in our area, that will have an extra-large cremator. I don't suppose many people have thought about the extra cost involved with having to do this.

You read about the fire brigade being called to move hugely obese patients to hospital, but you don't hear much about what happens when they're dead.

You can't have a lovely environmentally-friendly cardboard or wicker coffin if you're hugely fat; you'd just spill out of it, like a badly wrapped parcel.

You can't be carried by pall-bearers if you're more than 20 stone; you have to be pushed on a trolley.

It's difficult to bury a fat person; you need a very big hole, and a way to lower the coffin so it doesn't just thump to the bottom.

They've had this problem in the US for longer than us, so they've been manufacturing 44" wide cremators for a while, and now we're having to import them.

Fat people cost everyone money - not just because of their healthcare problems, the difficulty of moving them from A to B when they're ill and can't walk, but because it's very expensive to dispose of their corpses when they die.

The moral? Do everyone a favour, and don't die fat.

Illustration: 18th watercolour of a fat man by G H Beaumont

Wrapped in banana leaves

Keith Floyd had a Humanist funeral in Bristol. I'm told that it was reported in a local paper that there were "insufficient funds" to pay for his funeral, so I hope the celebrant got paid.

Floyd's partner Celia Martin chose a banana leaf coffin, because he sometimes cooked things wrapped in leaves - cabbage or vine, I assume. Sounds like a nice, environmentally-friendly thing to do, but I'm not sure that the crematorium staff will have appreciated it.

There's an increasing choice of materials for coffins, including cardboard, willow (which tends to creak when it's being lowered into a grave), and bamboo, which is less likely to sag in the middle than willow. None of them are suitable for large people, and there are more of them too.

The trouble with cremating coffins made from these materials is that they catch fire very quickly, I've been told. If you've got a nice hot furnace and you slide in a cardboard coffin, it tends to go whoosh, so the crematorium staff have to work fast before the body is completely exposed. They'd rather not have to poke about and push it in.

So, be considerate, please. Choose cardboard, creaky willow, bamboo or banana leaves if you're planning an interment, but if you're going to have someone cremated, choose a rigid coffin that will take a bit longer to warm up.

----------

My source in the West Country informs me:

It was reported there were insufficient funds for his funeral. Apparently he still owed £50,000 to one of his four wives. So if he died penniless, how come he spent £145 on his last meal in Lyme Regis?

Maybe he ran up a tab?

Memorials

My Twitter friend DD has posted something on her blog about the Arundel tomb, which made me wonder how many modern memorials will evoke the same sort of emotion in seven hundred years time? Maybe some of the ones commissioned through Memorials by Artists?

Harriet Frazer started Memorials by Artists in the late 1990s after she and her family had had great difficulty finding a headstone they liked for the grave of her step-daughter Sophie Behrens, who died in 1985. They wanted something beautiful and unique, like Sophie. It wasn't just a matter of finding craftspeople who could produce what they wanted, rather than something out of a catalogue. They also learned by trial and error about all the rules and regulations that cemeteries impose. Harriet and her family thought that other families might benefit from their experience, and that led to Memorials by Artists. They don't just put families in touch with sculptors and letter cutters; they can help with stained glass artists and other craftspeople too.

The photo from the Memorials by Artists booklet shows a headstone made from Kilkenny limestone by Jamie Sargeant. A theatre set design by Anton Furst is incised on the back.

A Flower Falls

One of my Twitter contacts, Meg, has just written an account of the death of her mother in an earthquake in her native Philippines, nineteen years ago. It ends -

After the funeral was over, the heavens opened and torrential rain came down thick as stair rods. My grandmother finally collapsed, wailing that her daughter would be soaked. The fact that my mother was dead and buried in a coffin six feet in the ground meant nothing to Lola. She could not be consoled. I held my grandmother's prostrate body in my arms, neither of us able to fully comprehend the loss of the woman who bound us together with a chain of kinship, history and love.

Only then did I remember it was my birthday. The day the earth claimed my mother a second time, I turned thirty.

The photo is of Meg (standing) and her mother Daisy, taken in 1983.

Posthumous conversions

Henry Allingham, the WW1 veteran who died on July 18th, aged 113, wasn't a religious man. He told the Guardian:

I can see why people fall out with religion. I last took communion in 1918. The Salvation Army were waiting for the boys to come out of the trenches. 'Cup of tea, soldier?' Yes please. 'There you go, son.' The Church Army had set up a quarter of a mile away: 'Cup of tea, soldier?' Yes please. 'Penny!' I didn't like that. They had all the money.

Many of the men who fought in WW1 left their faith on the battlefield. Whose side was God on? many of them asked. So why did the church get to muscle in on Henry's funeral? They didn't have him in life, so they took over when he died? Makes me cross when this sort of thing happens. A funeral should reflect a person's philosophy of life. If religion played no part in it, then it should play no part in his or her funeral. Damn cheek.

A few years ago, I was asked to conduct a private family funeral for the gardening correspondent of the East Anglian Daily Times and BBC Radio Suffolk, Roy Lacey. Roy had told his family that he wanted me to conduct his funeral, as he'd listened to my broadcasts and agreed with what I'd said. Subsequently, the editors of the EADT and BBC Suffolk agreed with the family that they'd like to broadcast a memorial event for Roy, and Mrs Lacey said she wanted me to lead it, as that's what Roy would have wanted. It was recorded at a school in Felixstowe, where Roy lived.

Various people were to provide tributes to Roy, there was a recording he'd made of his personal reminiscences, and we were to play Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending, which he liked. Then I was told that the event would include The Lords' Prayer. 'Why?' I asked. I can't remember the EADT editor's exact words, but it was something along the lines of, people would expect it, or it would include religious people. But Roy had specifically said that he didn't want any religion at his funeral, I said, and he wouldn't have wanted it now. I seem to remember that Mrs Lacey agreed with me, and the subject was dropped. I still have the recording somewhere. It was a moving occasion, and I don't think that anyone mentioned that anything was missing.

Not just boxes

Fish coffin from Ghana

I think it's a waste of money, spending a lot on a coffin. It'll soon be buried or burnt, though some people order theirs in advance, or make one in advance, and use it as a blanket box or cupboard - memento mori furniture.

I'd heard about the elaborate coffins made in Ghana, where coffin-makers aim to make coffins that look like anything their clients choose - cars, guns, fish (see above), animals, vegetables, mobile phones . . . Some of them are so elaborate, they must have to dig very large holes to bury them in. I think the African coffins were originally DIY projects, but have become so popular that they're exporting them.

I was watching the BBC's 'Flog It' TV programme this afternoon, when presenter Paul Martin visited a coffin maker, Vic Fearn & Company, who've responded to requests for more elaborate coffins by taking on a designer who'll create anything you want. This part of the business is called Crazy Coffins. Some of them cost £thousands. If you have one of those, people will remember your funeral, even if they forget who it was for.

Colourful Coffins have a 'pre-design' service; you can design your own coffin, maybe with "Goodbyee!" in big letters along the sides? It might be tempting to send some sort of farewell message to everyone.

There's evidently a market for this sort of thing, which can be very lucrative. The death business always was a money-spinner. When local builders first started making coffins, they were just plain boxes. Then some enterprising characters realised that their more affluent clients would be pleased to pay for better coffins, mourning accessories, professional mourners, fancy hearses, etc., to demonstrate their social superiority. Richard Chandler's trade card, c. 1750, lists what he could provide for a "decent" funeral ("at reasonable rates"), as opposed to a common or garden funeral. If Mr Chandler was alive today, he'd be making crazy coffins.

Richard Chandler's trade card, c.1750,
from 'The English Way of Death' by Julian Litton.

Kisses at the crematorium

After a funeral today, I had an interesting conversation with one of the staff - one of my fans, especially since I did a funeral for a family member.

He'd been listening, as he was chapel attendant today. He said he always enjoyed my funerals, and the ones that are conducted by my colleague, D. They're how funerals should be, said he. He was never keen on religion, but working at the crematorium and having to listen to so many religious funerals, he's even more atheist than before. I've heard the same complaint from other crematorium staff and funeral conductors (the people from the funeral directors who manage the event) ; religious funerals are all the same; they're irrelevant; they're more about God than about the person who's died; they're boring. Yes, I know they're not all bad, but I hear a lot of negative comments.

My friend said that, soon after he started working at the crematorium, there was a funeral that was to be led by a family member, an American preacher. He used the opportunity to preach hellfire and damnation, shouting at the mourners (several times) that they were all sinners. After about five minutes, the family had had enough. They told him to shut up and sit down. My friend said that made him wonder if his new job was going to be more interesting than he anticipated.

On the whole, however, it hasn't been that interesting. Day after day, week after week, he hears the same hymns, the same prayers, the same stuff about so-and-so going to be with Jesus. No wonder the staff tend to get quite excited when my colleague or I turn up. We aim to provide a ceremony that's relevant and unique, and we often include humorous anecdotes - so there are laughs too. Oh, and the music is better, I'm told. He was delighted when D turned up the other week and announced that the music included Ian Dury and the Blockheads - "There aren't half some clever bastards!"

My colleague, being male, probably doesn't get kissed very often away from home. I get kisses from clients and funeral directors, like the one I got today from the conductor waiting to do the funeral after mine. Few people can claim to enjoy job satisfaction and kisses.

I've been kissed by clergy too. A couple of retired clergy are old friends, including the one who did my parents' funerals. He once kissed me in the vestry, in front of a member of staff, who said in mock horror, "You kissed an atheist!" "That's all right," was the response, "it's not catching." I beg to differ.

Ashes, rockets and paperweights

When you pop your clogs, you can have your ashes sent heavenwards in a fireworks display. The company says it will be "Celebrating life through the spectacular and tasteful dispersal of cremation ashes by firework." They wisely don't guarantee where the ashes will land, so they possibly take the precaution of not firing any rockets near a motorway or sewage farm, particularly if there's a strong wind. They say "Each firework is labeled [sic] with your loved-ones [sic] name and a named Certificate of Authenticity is provided." Judging from the website, they might not spell the name right, but what does it matter if it's labelled anyway? It'll burn. You can have a "Manned Professionally Fired Tribute Firework Show" from £1,750.00 inc. VAT.

If you don't fancy a firework display, what about being turned into a paperweight? Might as well make yourself useful when you're dead.

Tom Sutcliffe wrote about this sort of thing in The Independent, and how his dog almost peed on a pile of ashes - not quite the dignified ending the family might have wanted. At least a paperweight might not get peed on, unless you carelessly leave it in the loo.

A few years ago, a retired RAF officer told me how a former colleague had requested that his ashes should be scattered from a light aircraft. It proved to be difficult to fulfil his request, as the ashes blew back into the cockpit as fast as they were thrown out. Some were swept up with a dustpan and brush after landing; he didn't say what they did with them.

A lot of people choose to have their ashes scattered in places that had special significance for them - on the top of hills, on football pitches, and so on. So many people are doing it these days that it's become a pollution problem and the government had to bring in new anti-pollution rules. Surely the ashes firework displays might be in breach of these rules, as they can't control where the ashes will land?

Carelessly throwing ashes around is as anti-social as littering, it seems to me, and not nearly as "tasteful" and romantic as many people might imagine.

Update, September 2018

I've been given a small container with some relative's cremains. The rest have been distributed among other family members and in places my relative enjoyed visiting. I didn't ask for them and didn't want them. I think the idea was that they should go in my garden somewhere. When I'm dead no one in the family will have access, since I'm a tenant, so that'll be that. Meanwhile, they sit on a bookshelf. To prove how illogical I am, a box of my last dog's cremains are nearby, to be inherited by my next of kin. Can you imagine them being passed along after my demise? Well, they won't be my problem, will they?

Oh, and I've just learned that it's now possible to have ashes sent into space.

Mass mourning

Would you want to share the funeral of someone you loved with lots of other families, while a bunch of priests went on about God and said nothing about the person you'd lost? Rows of coffins, plenty of priestly platitudes, a papal message about feeling "spiritually present", but no memories, no affectionate tributes. No. Me neither.

No memorabilia

No memorabilia, originally uploaded by Sparrows' Friend.

I was talking about soggy teddy bears, wind chimes, plastic flowers, windmills, toys, and football shirts with one of the Ipswich cemetery staff, and he said he thought it began after the Hillsborough disaster, when fans left scarves and flowers at the football club gates.

I've previously written about the waste of money when Diana died, and London's streets were full of dead flowers and stuffed toys.

This photo's on Flickr, where a contact wrote, "Having seen the hideous stuff in Bury St Edmunds Crematorium I'm not surprised. I used to think vicars were being snobbish in their limitations over graves; Bury's gardens of remembrance have put me clear on that."

It's all so tacky. Leaving flowers on a grave has been enough, until recently, to signify that someone is missed, and that his or her nearest and dearest are keeping his or her memory alive. What does a pile of tat say about someone? Nothing, but it does say a lot about how people who struggle to express their loss will imitate one another without really thinking about it. It's what Richard Dawkins calls a "meme", like the fashion for wearing baseball caps back to front. I don't know how long this fashion will last, but I hope it's not long.

Last word (for now) on Jade

I've already written about Jade Goody. Now Johann Hari's written about her too. I felt inclined to cheer when I read it.

Be prepared

I shouldn't really criticise, as I'm not the most organised person you could meet, but it's so inconsiderate to pop your clogs and leave your nearest and dearest to hunt the will, bank statements, insurance policies, etc. The period immediately after a death is difficult enough, without all the hassle of trying to find things that have been carefully hidden away and no one has a clue where to look for them.

Even if you do nothing else in anticipation of your demise (and most people would rather not think about it, I know), let whoever will have to deal with the practicalities know where you keep your important papers.

The most recent funeral I conducted was for a bachelor who died suddenly, alone at home. His family had no idea where he kept everything. I expect they're still sorting through his stuff. When there are drawers full of old letters, you can't just chuck them out, in case there's something important in there.

When my mother died, it took me days to find her jewellery. She'd wrapped individual pieces in tissue paper and put it all in a supermarket carrier bag hanging from a hook on the back of her bedroom door. I suppose her reasoning was that it would be the last place a burglar would look. I almost threw it out, thinking it was rubbish, after days of sorting through over seventy years' worth of stuff.

Make a will. Don't wait until you're past retirement age. It's especially important when you're married or just living together, and essential when you have children. You may not have any money, but there may be insurance money as a result of your death as a result of accident or illness. You can appoint a guardian or guardians for your children, so that people you trust will be responsible for caring for them if you die. Will you want a brother with a rather casual approach to health and safety to look after them, or a close female friend who won't let them run amok? It's up to you.

However, there's not much point making a will if no one knows about it, or where it is. So tell someone! Then you can get on with the business of living, and need say no more about it.

Jade

An interweb friend has been ranting on Facebook about Jade Goody's public death bed scene, or scenes:

X is wondering if he is alone in really not giving a monkey's chuff about Jade Goody and is sick of every bit of exposure it's getting?

I'm not sick of it because I haven't seen any of it. I don't watch Big Brother; life's short enough as it is without wasting any on freak shows. I don't usually read newspapers and never read the tabloids, apart from when I'm reviewing them on local radio. I never watch Sky TV. I get my news from the BBC, CNN, and the Guardian and Independent websites. I did get sick of the coverage of Diana's death, when the BBC went on and on about it, and the Queen Mum's death attracted far too much publicity - boring, boring boring! But if you watch rolling news, you'll soon reach saturation point when there's a big story at the top of the list. Switch off. It's easy.

So I can't really comment about the Jade Goody and her cancer stories, as I haven't seen any of them, but as she's hired Max Clifford, the media pimp, to manage her deathbed publicity, it's not surprising that she's in the news. The idea, apparently, is to raise as much money as possible from fees to benefit her children, who'll soon be motherless. What they'll make of it, heaven knows, but since Jade's from a dysfunctional family, and these things tend to repeat themselves, I hope they have some sensible people around as they grow up.

My ranty friend opined,

Take Kylie. Quiet dignity, utter poise, grace and complete humility. Compare that to the Jade Goody Media Express. Kylie inspired more women than Jade EVER could.

Maybe, but Kylie's been in show business since childhood. She's used to publicity. She's a wealthy woman without kids who isn't desperate to leave money to her family. Jade may not have inspired anyone, but the fact that she's got terminal cancer in her twenties has already prompted more young women to get checked for cervical cancer, probably saving lives. Many more young women are at risk nowadays, due to their sexual activitity from an early age. Dignity, poise and grace? Drunkeness, lust and risk-taking; the sort of thing that poor silly Jade's well-known for.

If she'd lived into old age, what would have happened to Jade Goody? She'd probably have been driven out of the limelight by the next gaggle of notorious female celebrities and retired into obscurity. As it is, she'll be remembered as a train wreck of a woman with a reputation for saying the first thing that came into her head and upsetting Shilpa Shetty. There are thousands like her, but she just happened to go on Big Brother and gain a publicist. It's all very sad. She needed a minder, but not Max Clifford. She needed someone to look after her from an early age. Now all she's got is the mawkish attention of the worst sort of media and the people who bother to read or watch what they produce. You get the feeling that they've already been totting up the profits from the sale of her toenail clippings. Whoever's at her bedside when she dies, I hope they're people who genuinely care about her.