My Father's Funeral

We were fortunate I suppose, with hindsight, that there were four of us, that we all felt the same way and that we didn’t mind not toeing then line when it came to what’s expected to happen at a funeral.

We used a local funeral director, who like the old rural system, also worked as a general carpenter and was known locally as ‘John the Box’ .

We didn’t really ask him what was possible, we told him what we wanted and he complied. Knowing what I know now about making funerals I wince a bit at our cavalier naivety and sloppy timing, but what we made together was definitely fitting and good. One guest said it was the best funeral she’d ever been to and it changed the way she looked at funerals thereafter.

We agreed on music, we all spoke or sang and we had a moment of everyone holding hands that brought the whole room to a collective moment of stillness. The committal wasn’t as good as I think it could have been, but that’s hindsight. We did our Dad justice, we honoured who he was, celebrated his life whilst still acknowledging his shortcomings and belligerent nature. We also recognised that it was time for him to go and that he was now liberated from a body and a life he no longer wished to be in.

My sister made him a wreath for the coffin out of old copies of The Guardian tied up with baler twine, his RNLI tie was in the coffin and his shepherds crook was on top. We made our own orders of service and avoided platitudes and unnecessary expense. The whole process brought us together as a family and helped us move forward into a different world. 

I want to help others to feel able to make choices, to create ceremonies that are unique, reflecting the individual and helping them to start on their own journey of healing individually and collectively. 

I wrote about his funeral in 2008 for The Guardian Family section https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/31/relief-after-our-fathers-funeral