DIY Coffin

[Owain]

Side trip to B&Q or the local chippie, gun-running, ...

Owain

[ARWadsworth]

So would I.

Adam

[Pete Verdon]

It's not quite a collapsing coffin, but my granny's funeral stank of cowshit as the farmer next door to the church chose that afternoon to clean out his sheds. The general consensus was that granny would have found this highly amusing.

Pete

[Andrew Gabriel]

I've been to a couple of funerals where someone was playing some very well know pieces of music incredibly badly on the organ, sufficiently so that the audience all started looking around at each other in disbelief. At one of them, when the music finished, this ghostly figure emerged from the organ console and slowly walked up the isle with a zimmer frame. The whole audience had to look down at the floor and try really hard not to burst out laughing -- a sea of shoulders bouncing in silent laughter. Afterwards, we were sure the deceased, who was a musician, was having a laugh with us from up there somewhere.

Another occasion, a friend who was a distant relative of the deceased and is herself a cellist, offered to play a solo piece at the crematorium. Sitting up front, she went through her solo fine. Later in the service, one of the speakers introduced another piece of music which was apparently one of the favourates of the deceased, and the mourners sat in silence listening to "Smoke gets in your eyes", which she thought was a bizzare choice at a chrematorium, but she didn't know the deceased very well. Afterwards, outside a row broke out. It turns out, they played the wrong side of the record. She never did find out what was supposed to be played, but apparently "Smoke gets in your eyes" is a not infrequent request and the staff were quite used to digging out that LP.

[Andy Dingley]

Search out Sandy Dillon's "Into the flame"

[Tim Downie]

Not forgetting "Light my fire" by The Doors.

Tim

[Owain]

Have they invented casketcams yet?

Owain

[Owain]

My father's funeral got stuck behind the coal lorry. Perhaps fortunately we were heading for burial not cremation.

Owain

[Appin]

The message

from Owain contains these words:

No idea -- haven't been to a funeral there for a few years :-) Cemeteries with electric hookups next? :-)

[Rob G]

Somewhere in this thread there was a mention of basketwork coffins - now as is always the way no doubt because I haven't re-read the threads, this website has already been mentioned.

But here goes anyway - I was looking at this website as my wife has just bought something from these people in the Edinburgh Festival - and lo and behold they do basketwork coffins

[the_constructor]

Ever thought of a totally eco friendly coffin. Made out of cardboard.

[Owain]

They do that in Italy - you get the power for the little red light in your crypt added to your electric bill.

Owain

[Tony Bryer]

sure what they do to turn old newspapers etc into cardboard but suspect that there's more than a little energy and a chemical or two along the way.

[The Medway Handyman]

about.

[AA]

Its a bag in a box, as long as contents dosent sloosh about.

Adam

[Bill Wright]

What's the point of worrying about the environment if you're going to die?

Bill

[dennis]

Why worry about anything? You are going to die.

[Andy Champ]

what on earth are they?

Andy

[Mark Spice]

Ones where the body has been dead for a while before being found.

Some liquefaction has probably set in by that point....

Cheers

Mark

[Tim S]

Mark Spice coughed up some electrons that declared:

I'd hate to be an undertaker. Must be grim at the best of times - but that, not to mention horrific accidents and burn victims :(