Lovely article which of course brings reflection. My mum always said she was proud she had 4 sons to carry her coffin. When she died , so young at 58, I was a youthful 27 and my youngest brother a baby 17 year old. We couldn’t do it. A mixture of overwhelming grief, fear of getting it wrong and embarrassment at being on show calcified us all. I’m 66 now and it continues to be one of my biggest regrets, irrational though I know that is.
Really nice piece. Thank you. I live in Belfast and was taken by the discordant statistics between Britain and Northern Ireland as regards cremation. I have no idea if this is the sole reason, but have a sneaking suspicion kmut may have something to do with it.
As you'll know, we remain a quite religious society here compared to friends in Britain. I myself was raised evangelical and my parents and their contemporaries always had a negative view of cremation. I queried this once as a child and was told it was because at the time of the second coming, when 'the dead in Christ' shall rise again and have their bodies turned into new incorruptible bodies, the Lord apparently needs some decent starter material to work with for the refurbishment. Ashes won't do.
Not sure if Catholic friends have the same hang up in their families.
Anyway, it'll be cremation for me. I like these new long barrows being ooened in which to store urns.
Hi David, I really liked the article. A couple of things struck me, one being the low rate of cremations in NI. Adrian has suggested it is religious reasons and that certainly is part of it. I know many Catholics who dislike the idea: one of my US cousins gave instructions to her executrix that she should be taken home to Ireland under her arm, i.e. in an urn, and another cousin, a Jesuit priest, who had a great fear of being buried alive, sought special permission from the head of his order to allow his remains to be cremated.
Furthermore, the first crematorium in Ireland was opened at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in the early 1980s, almost a century after Woking. So, perhaps a more interesting comparison would be England (or GB) cremations rate in 1924 versus Ireland (NI or RoI) 2024.
When living in England, I attended more Cremations than Religious funerals. Generally those I knew in England were less concerned about religious beliefs than people in Ireland where Faith, although declining, is still important -- e.g. the vast majority send their children to a school that follows a particular faith, huge numbers get married in a church, and Religious funerals are important.
I don't know if Adrian's family have annual Patron (pronounced pattern) days, a popular Catholic tradition (maybe other Faiths engage in it as well) in Ireland where families clean up the graveyard and place flowers on their family grave for a ceremony which involves the "Blessing of the graves" followed by a field day with lots of tea and cake. If people or their ashes aren't buried in the family plot, it isn't easy to participate in this annual event. Incidentally, my local church is named after St John the Baptist whose feast day is 24th June (afaik he was 6 months older than Jesus). Our Patron is held on the first Sunday of July which is close to the Old Calendar day. While this might seem an anachronism, bear in mind that the Battle of the Boyne which is remembered on the 12th July, took place on 1st July Old Style…
We don't have Patron days, but I was aware of them. I've always thought these were uniquely catholic? Might be in some Anglican / Church of Ireland traditions too though? Not sure.
I think Catholicism tends to be much more communitarian than evangelical Protestantism. These types of shared experiences and rituals bind people together more cohesively. As befits the contrarian nature of how Protestantism started, there's a bit of a rugged individualism going on that means we maybe missed out on socially useful practices, I think?
Case in point are wakes, which I reckon are a superb way of dealing with family bereavement. It's telling to me that lots of Protestant families from more rural western areas of NI who have mostly Catholic neighbours have adopted the wake as their own. There is a utility to sharing a grief communally over a number of days, I reckon.
My sister has my parents ashes, that we have finally agreed where to scatter. The funniest part of her keeping them was when one of our parents’ great-grandkids was playing with what their parents assumed was a bag of sand: it was our mum 😂. We thought it was hilarious - as would have our mum; kid’s parent on learning was not so relaxed
After my dear husband’s cremation on a damp and dreer November day, in due course I received a very nice letter from the crematorium informing me that they had his ashes and would keep them for as long as I wanted, absolutely no pressure. By the time I received the 4th or 5th of what had turned out to be monthly letters, always with the same reassurance that there was absolutely no pressure to collect them, I decided that with the better weather the time had come collect them and to choose a place to scatter them. But where?
Like others here I discovered that the urn was rather heavier and more cumbersome than I had expected and I ended up with him snugly lodged behind the driving seat of my car, the closest to being a back seat driver he ever got. Finally whilst listening to our son singing shanties with his mates in a Falmouth pub the lightbulb moment came, so once they had finished their set, our son, daughter and I went down to the pier and spread his ashes upon his beloved sea. And then watched them wash back all over our shoes. Ah well - how he would have laughed at that.
Our parish church has a piece of green sward close to it, in which 'interment of ashes' can take place. There is a list of the names and dates of those interred. My husband used to like walking in the churchyard, so this is entirely appropriate.
When my (now) wife's father died, he was cremated and she took charge of the urn. . But also, when she cleared out his house she found a tea caddy containing his late wife's remains.
Living as she did in Southend, she had an idea. She booked a short cruise from the pier on a tourist ship for the family and asked about disposal over the side.
Turns out it's a common request and they have a procedure. They clear a part of the quarterdeck for ten or fifteen minutes and give the family some privacy.
Also. Top tip from a Naval chaplain. Don't just tip the ashed over the side; they will blow back at you. In a paper bag, in a cardboard box with holes in. She painted the box black.
My dad started working life on the Fleetwood trawlers, then in the Royal Navy, so we had his ashes spread on the Irish Sea by the local lifeboat, which they were happy to do, in return for a donation to RNLI.
More amusing was the fate of an elderly woman where I grew up, who was famous locally for her fierce protection of and care for the local village green. So it was determined that the many local mourners would gather in the pub across the road from the green, then process over for the ashes’ dispersal. Unfortunately the turnout was such that the pub was completely rammed, and in the melee somebody accidentally jolted the urn off the bar, with the result that her ashes mingled with the beer spilt on the floor....
In some areas, the council will permit ashes to be scattered in their parks, subject to a few conditions. When we found this out after my mother, a keen gardener, died, it was obvious to scatter her ashes among the roses in the park at the end of the road in which she had lived for more than 60 years. This is allowed, provided the ashes are scattered thinly. As someone else has commented, there's a lot of ashes - about a 2lb sugar bag in volume. As we struggled to spread these appropriately, we were laughing uncontrollably.
I was struck by the sheer volume of ashes. We scattered my husband over the Malverns & still have a lot left. We are planning a rocket for the rest of him. Think he'd enjoy going out with a bang!
In London, if you are Jewish, even if with only tenuous links, you usually get buried in the old fashioned way with a coffin buried in the ground accompanied by a ceremony.
Just visit the cemetery at Bushey. It’s huge, with a ‘new’ section recently added to it.
If, on the other hand, like my parents, you have an aversion to synagogues, you might get cremated at the Golders Green crematorium and, with a small family ceremony sometime later, the ashes are buried in their beautiful grounds, with a modest memorial plaque to mark the place. A book of remembrance is available with a poem inscribed chosen in this case by me. Paul Celan.
Thank you for this discussion. I love how you worked as a family to find the perfect spot.
I released my husband and dog, at the same time, into the North Sea on the beautiful beach at Lunan Bay. It was late at night and going dark and I was alone and very sad but they both loved this place and I feel I set them free somehow. Crying now.
Good choice, Kew, but don't ask for permission because the answer is no. Having been refused we scattered my late wife's ashes clandestinely among the bluebells. No one tried to stop us.
Lovely piece. Both my parent's ashes were interred in their local cemetery with a small memorial stone. I don't visit but my sister does. A 'portion' of my father's ashes are buried in my sister's garden, under a rather nice ornament of a fox. She says she will dig him up when/if she moves. I have a thought that I might keep my husband on the mantlepiece if he goes first.....
My younger brother is being cremated in three weeks time - no one has raised the question of his ashes. I think I might start the conversation...
Lovely article which of course brings reflection. My mum always said she was proud she had 4 sons to carry her coffin. When she died , so young at 58, I was a youthful 27 and my youngest brother a baby 17 year old. We couldn’t do it. A mixture of overwhelming grief, fear of getting it wrong and embarrassment at being on show calcified us all. I’m 66 now and it continues to be one of my biggest regrets, irrational though I know that is.
She would have understood.
Thank you that’s sweet of you.
Really nice piece. Thank you. I live in Belfast and was taken by the discordant statistics between Britain and Northern Ireland as regards cremation. I have no idea if this is the sole reason, but have a sneaking suspicion kmut may have something to do with it.
As you'll know, we remain a quite religious society here compared to friends in Britain. I myself was raised evangelical and my parents and their contemporaries always had a negative view of cremation. I queried this once as a child and was told it was because at the time of the second coming, when 'the dead in Christ' shall rise again and have their bodies turned into new incorruptible bodies, the Lord apparently needs some decent starter material to work with for the refurbishment. Ashes won't do.
Not sure if Catholic friends have the same hang up in their families.
Anyway, it'll be cremation for me. I like these new long barrows being ooened in which to store urns.
Hi David, I really liked the article. A couple of things struck me, one being the low rate of cremations in NI. Adrian has suggested it is religious reasons and that certainly is part of it. I know many Catholics who dislike the idea: one of my US cousins gave instructions to her executrix that she should be taken home to Ireland under her arm, i.e. in an urn, and another cousin, a Jesuit priest, who had a great fear of being buried alive, sought special permission from the head of his order to allow his remains to be cremated.
Furthermore, the first crematorium in Ireland was opened at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in the early 1980s, almost a century after Woking. So, perhaps a more interesting comparison would be England (or GB) cremations rate in 1924 versus Ireland (NI or RoI) 2024.
When living in England, I attended more Cremations than Religious funerals. Generally those I knew in England were less concerned about religious beliefs than people in Ireland where Faith, although declining, is still important -- e.g. the vast majority send their children to a school that follows a particular faith, huge numbers get married in a church, and Religious funerals are important.
I don't know if Adrian's family have annual Patron (pronounced pattern) days, a popular Catholic tradition (maybe other Faiths engage in it as well) in Ireland where families clean up the graveyard and place flowers on their family grave for a ceremony which involves the "Blessing of the graves" followed by a field day with lots of tea and cake. If people or their ashes aren't buried in the family plot, it isn't easy to participate in this annual event. Incidentally, my local church is named after St John the Baptist whose feast day is 24th June (afaik he was 6 months older than Jesus). Our Patron is held on the first Sunday of July which is close to the Old Calendar day. While this might seem an anachronism, bear in mind that the Battle of the Boyne which is remembered on the 12th July, took place on 1st July Old Style…
We don't have Patron days, but I was aware of them. I've always thought these were uniquely catholic? Might be in some Anglican / Church of Ireland traditions too though? Not sure.
I think Catholicism tends to be much more communitarian than evangelical Protestantism. These types of shared experiences and rituals bind people together more cohesively. As befits the contrarian nature of how Protestantism started, there's a bit of a rugged individualism going on that means we maybe missed out on socially useful practices, I think?
Case in point are wakes, which I reckon are a superb way of dealing with family bereavement. It's telling to me that lots of Protestant families from more rural western areas of NI who have mostly Catholic neighbours have adopted the wake as their own. There is a utility to sharing a grief communally over a number of days, I reckon.
My sister has my parents ashes, that we have finally agreed where to scatter. The funniest part of her keeping them was when one of our parents’ great-grandkids was playing with what their parents assumed was a bag of sand: it was our mum 😂. We thought it was hilarious - as would have our mum; kid’s parent on learning was not so relaxed
After my dear husband’s cremation on a damp and dreer November day, in due course I received a very nice letter from the crematorium informing me that they had his ashes and would keep them for as long as I wanted, absolutely no pressure. By the time I received the 4th or 5th of what had turned out to be monthly letters, always with the same reassurance that there was absolutely no pressure to collect them, I decided that with the better weather the time had come collect them and to choose a place to scatter them. But where?
Like others here I discovered that the urn was rather heavier and more cumbersome than I had expected and I ended up with him snugly lodged behind the driving seat of my car, the closest to being a back seat driver he ever got. Finally whilst listening to our son singing shanties with his mates in a Falmouth pub the lightbulb moment came, so once they had finished their set, our son, daughter and I went down to the pier and spread his ashes upon his beloved sea. And then watched them wash back all over our shoes. Ah well - how he would have laughed at that.
Our parish church has a piece of green sward close to it, in which 'interment of ashes' can take place. There is a list of the names and dates of those interred. My husband used to like walking in the churchyard, so this is entirely appropriate.
Thanks.
When my (now) wife's father died, he was cremated and she took charge of the urn. . But also, when she cleared out his house she found a tea caddy containing his late wife's remains.
Living as she did in Southend, she had an idea. She booked a short cruise from the pier on a tourist ship for the family and asked about disposal over the side.
Turns out it's a common request and they have a procedure. They clear a part of the quarterdeck for ten or fifteen minutes and give the family some privacy.
Also. Top tip from a Naval chaplain. Don't just tip the ashed over the side; they will blow back at you. In a paper bag, in a cardboard box with holes in. She painted the box black.
My father asked the Fulham and Hammersmith Borough Council to plant memorial trees in Bishops Park near the river.
They are not marked but we know where they are. Now nearly 50 years old they are a magnificent sight.
My dad started working life on the Fleetwood trawlers, then in the Royal Navy, so we had his ashes spread on the Irish Sea by the local lifeboat, which they were happy to do, in return for a donation to RNLI.
More amusing was the fate of an elderly woman where I grew up, who was famous locally for her fierce protection of and care for the local village green. So it was determined that the many local mourners would gather in the pub across the road from the green, then process over for the ashes’ dispersal. Unfortunately the turnout was such that the pub was completely rammed, and in the melee somebody accidentally jolted the urn off the bar, with the result that her ashes mingled with the beer spilt on the floor....
In some areas, the council will permit ashes to be scattered in their parks, subject to a few conditions. When we found this out after my mother, a keen gardener, died, it was obvious to scatter her ashes among the roses in the park at the end of the road in which she had lived for more than 60 years. This is allowed, provided the ashes are scattered thinly. As someone else has commented, there's a lot of ashes - about a 2lb sugar bag in volume. As we struggled to spread these appropriately, we were laughing uncontrollably.
I was struck by the sheer volume of ashes. We scattered my husband over the Malverns & still have a lot left. We are planning a rocket for the rest of him. Think he'd enjoy going out with a bang!
Urnership.
Really.
Hi David,
In London, if you are Jewish, even if with only tenuous links, you usually get buried in the old fashioned way with a coffin buried in the ground accompanied by a ceremony.
Just visit the cemetery at Bushey. It’s huge, with a ‘new’ section recently added to it.
If, on the other hand, like my parents, you have an aversion to synagogues, you might get cremated at the Golders Green crematorium and, with a small family ceremony sometime later, the ashes are buried in their beautiful grounds, with a modest memorial plaque to mark the place. A book of remembrance is available with a poem inscribed chosen in this case by me. Paul Celan.
Thank you for this discussion. I love how you worked as a family to find the perfect spot.
I released my husband and dog, at the same time, into the North Sea on the beautiful beach at Lunan Bay. It was late at night and going dark and I was alone and very sad but they both loved this place and I feel I set them free somehow. Crying now.
Good choice, Kew, but don't ask for permission because the answer is no. Having been refused we scattered my late wife's ashes clandestinely among the bluebells. No one tried to stop us.
To NI: its has a few Catholics and they do not agree to cremation. Makes it hard to go to heaven when you’re ash
Lovely piece. Both my parent's ashes were interred in their local cemetery with a small memorial stone. I don't visit but my sister does. A 'portion' of my father's ashes are buried in my sister's garden, under a rather nice ornament of a fox. She says she will dig him up when/if she moves. I have a thought that I might keep my husband on the mantlepiece if he goes first.....
My younger brother is being cremated in three weeks time - no one has raised the question of his ashes. I think I might start the conversation...