I recently advised a family intent upon a garden burial. Initially, this was a telephone conversation followed by a visit from a member of the family. After a short conversation, they took a couple of books from my library related to funerals.
My advice might not be an essential need for a home burial but I can offer a couple of advantages. Firstly, I can instil confidence in their proposals and, secondly, I have a series of books that lay out the funeral process in understandable language. On this occasion, The Good Funeral Guide by Charles Cowling seemed the ideal step by step guide. In addition, as I could see they wanted a secular funeral service, I gave them a copy of ‘Funerals Without God’, by Jane Wynne Willson and published through the British Humanist Association.
The funeral went well and the books proved very helpful. I feel privileged to provide community support for a local funeral, especially now I am no longer managing cemeteries and crematoria in a professional capacity. Funerals do not need to be complex or commercial and we need to pull them back into the community wherever we can.
What I experienced with this funeral typified similar experiences in my past. Firstly, such funerals were unknown prior to the early 1990’s. The emergence of the Natural Death Centre at that time encouraged more DIY or family centred funerals, more hands-on as it were. In part this was to reduce ever burgeoning funeral costs but, as with this funeral, it was more about being in control. The intrusion of professionals tends to reinforce the old ways, what we call the traditional funeral. However, that tended to be religious, with everyone dressed in black and somewhat repressed as regards the life of the deceased. We all had to be god fearing mortals stepping over into a new existence in an imaginary paradise. The personality of the bereaved was subsumed to the needs of religion expressed through the clergy. I observed that death world for 30 years before things changed in the 1990’s. I saw little to convince me that people really believed or, indeed, found a great amount of solace in such formal funerals.
The kinds of people taking this new route, from the early 1990’s, fascinated me. Although I could say that they were principally affluent people, a small number were in a dire financial state. A few of these people would state without embarrassment that they had no money. Many did not say that and did not need to. We should all have a right to a low cost funeral and, as a public employee, it was my job to explain the options. Sadly, it was only when they approached a funeral director that cost raised its ugly head. The profession sold traditional packaged funerals and because they entail so much staff input, it is difficult to hold costs down.
However, let me return to a garden burial. Such requests usually arose because the deceased was a gardener or had a close relationship to the environment. This included loving birds, trees, wildflowers, the soil or even bees. They also had to own a large garden or farm and, consequently, could consider such a burial. It is worth reflecting that in Britain, the great lords and ladies have often been buried in a family mausoleum on their land. The rich had always, in essence, practiced garden burial and now the nouveau riche, or at least those who owned a little land, had similar aspirations.
For these people, a cremation in a distant and rather formal location has no natural feel to it. A crematorium is, after all, an industrial process with a high carbon footprint. On this occasion, the family had similar feelings. To reduce the environmental impact, the deceased’s son and son-in-law dug the grave by hand. They had ample time as the sudden death required a post mortem. As the mortuary was at a hospital, this took weeks. They purchased a hand woven coffin online from a Somerset willow business. They used a funeral director to transport the body to the house and garden. The service was outdoors, under a deep blue sky. The burial was beneath a flower bed looking out over the amazing countryside.
What is important here is that the deceased is where he and the family want to be. There was little bureaucracy and nobody in black at the service. Nevertheless, there were many aspects which I have not outlined here and which need careful consideration. Not least, if a property with a burial recorded on the deeds is sold, the body could be exhumed by new owners. Neither can the grave be visited at a later date if it is controlled by new owners. It is essential to be aware of these aspects before proceeding.
Personally, I have no desire for a garden burial. The house I live in is new with a relatively small garden, under which is solid limestone. Neither would I want my demise to complicate Ann’s new status as a widow. The bureaucracy involved in a death is bad enough without the potential complexity of selling a house with a body in the garden.
My body will be shipped off to a natural burial grave already purchased and waiting. Neither do I want her to feel a compulsion to visit my grave, my little habitat. I will be covered by bluebells in spring and rank grass and wildflowers over the summer. That will harbour buzzing crickets and nosing hedgehogs. If lucky, a deer will leap the fence a lay a fawn, perhaps hidden throughout the day, on my little patch. She will return to suckle it when darkness falls. Far from being dead, I might be more alive, more useful, than when I ever drew breath.
Article by Ken West
The Stonehenge Pensioner
