I thought I’d post a link to the poem, as I forgot last time. Those of you with cultural leanings, or a familiarity with Four Weddings and a Funeral, won’t need it.
So far I’ve selected the man to take the service, inclined towards a cardboard coffin and decided against a council funeral.
I’m thinking of a natural burial, though I’m concerned about cost. If anyone is going to make free with the kids’ inheritance it’s going to be me and Julia, not some stranger in a black suit.
For that reason I’m inclining towards a hot funeral with the sprinkling of the resulting ashes being performed in a cheap and clandestine manner. I can’t give too many details, but previous family ash scatterings owe a lot to the funeral of Sir John Moore after the Battle of Corunna.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.
It’s a bit like guerrilla gardening, but nobody writes so much about it. This is another way to scatter ashes.
Which brings us to the subject of the actual law on scattering ashes. It seems pretty relaxed, and you can scatter them anywhere as long as you have permission from the landowner. If you don’t have permission you can be fined for littering.
The law in other countries may differ – it is more complex, for instance, in the USA.
An unexpected feature of a cardboard coffin is that the resulting cremains are less bulky than if you use a wooden coffin. Or what passes for wood these days.
I think that’s enough for now. In the next part I will discuss music and Battenburg cake.