A Grave Business by David Holman-Hill Waters

 

A Grave Business

 “Have you decided what you are going to do with your Mum and Dad’s ashes yet?” Asked my wife recently. “Your Dad’s been dead two years now and your Mum, seven.”

“Is it that long?”

“Yes, and you can’t just leave them at the undertakers indefinitely.”

I’d been mulling this question for some time. The problem had originally been that my mother died in Salisbury, Wiltshire at which point my father had come to live with us in North Wales and, having five years later, received his telegram from the Queen, died with us 

She, my mother not the Queen, had been born in Devon, my father in Pembrokeshire, they had met, during the Second World War, in Salisbury, to whence, having lived in numerous places over the years, they had retired. The problem now however was time.

Between my wife’s job and her studying for her Master’s degree, finding the time when, in reasonably decent weather, we could make the round trip to do the honours was proving difficult. So, what to do?

“Well, I did think maybe Mother in Devon and Father in Pembrokeshire.”

“Don’t you want to keep them together?”

“Could do I suppose.”

“Oh for goodness sake.”

“What?”

“You heard. You can’t just split them up.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t. They were married fifty nine years.”

“Probably glad of a break then.”

“Don’t be so stupid it’s the thought and the sentiment that we are talking about here.”

“Well, do we actually need to bury them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well can’t we just wait ‘til there’s a good strong breeze, toddle up to the top of the hill and shake them out up there? Provided the breeze is in the right general direction, ie. going south… they’d be entwined and together for all time. Mind you they were never great ones for travel.”

“I’m not arguing with you, decide what you want to do and get it organised.”

“Aah… and what decision my love, have you decided I’ve come to?”

“Oowh!”

“OK, but which, Devon or Pembrokeshire?”

“Look, if you really want to do both why not split them half and half?”

“Half and half! I thought you wanted to keep them together. They’re ashes woman, they’re in bits, how would we know which half of which they were getting?”

“I shan’t tell you again…”

We conclude eventually that the best solution will be to take both sets of ashes to one destination and accordingly decide upon the small village in Devon where my mother was born. It was an area where they had spent many happy days over the years walking in the countryside. Her father had been highly regarded as sexton at the church and the family had lived in a thatched cottage opposite the church and churchyard. Problem solved. Plus, as I pointed out, “just look at the saving we’ll make on petrol.”

Problem solved… or not. It is at this point I thought it advisable to contact the vicar and let the Reverend gentleman know there’d be two extra for services in future. One presumes that one cannot, even in these liberal and secular days, just pitch up, dig a hole, pour in a bunch of ashes and waltz off again without some sort of official cognisance of the act. What I was not prepared for however was the sharp intake of ecclesiastical breath, the equivalent of “Ooh, hold up there squire, iss not that straightforward. I mean, there’s religious protocol to be observed here, sunshine, not to mention where there’ll be serious paperwork, prob’ly in triplicate; have to go forward to the diocesan board this, plus needing a nod from the Archdeacon, not forgetting the obligatory fee for the church benefactors. Then, on account of it being a team vicaring dioceses, an’ the Mother’s Union meeting on a Thursday, the Ladies Guild alternate Wednesdays, choirboys’ outing up Weymouth, and that’s not even takin’ into account matins, weddin’s and baptisms…

An’ it’s serious trouble at font you cocks them up I can tell you. Oooh, could be a week come next Septuagesima before we could fit you in. And err, don’t mind me mentionin’ it squire, but a small dab in the fist for the reading wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Readin’ what readin’ is that?”

“Oh you gotta have a readin’ squire, interment, can’t just go bungin’ ‘em in withoutta a plantin’ ceremony…”.

Ah, of course, fair enough then your Reverence.

Not being one to rock the Ecclesiastical boat, I enquire as to anything further his Reverence might require from me beyond the church’s eager desire to pocket my folding.

I am astounded, for starters: signed certificates of death and cremation for both the departed. Was this, I suggested, some sort of counter measure against the rural populace’s practise of popping each other, untimely, and in a somewhat singed condition, beneath the sod regardless of previous state of health; all in some pagan do-it-yourself funeral rite? Ah, a sense of humour seemingly does not appear to be one of the present Devonshire CoE’s major strengths. The response was tart. Then again, this is very rural Devon, perhaps I was too close to the truth for comfort.

Choice of headstones would also prove to be severely restricted. Not just any old marker to be displayed here. No papist black marble, winged angels, hearts and flowers or open prayer books. Plaques only; these to be of specified size and of specified soft grey stone, blending with that of the church and its landscape. Even this would have to be vetted and approved by the Diocesan Committee and the Archdeacon. No wonder it would be easier for a camel to pass through eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven; they obviously hadn’t told him he’d have to get past the Archdeacon and the committee.

Overnight hotel booked, cheque written, requisite used folding trousered, death certificates to hand, The Pater’s ashes collected - a large blue plastic screw top jar in a rather smart blue card carrier bag, plus cremation certificate - we set off for Salisbury to collect my Mother’s ashes.

I had informed the funeral directors in Salisbury of our impending arrival for the ashes collection and, in return, they had duly promised they would be available. Slightly late, my wife has never been a stickler for departure times, we arrived, parked and entered the portals of the old, family established, undertakers. Reception was empty but the bright ting of a small brass bell on the desk elicited the arrival of a young lady in her late twenties to aid us.

“Hello, you are expecting us, I’m here to collect my Mother’s ashes, Christabel Hannah Waters.”

“Oh, OK, just a minute.” She opened the diary on the desk and examined the events of the day.

“Sorry, what name was it?”

“Christabel Hannah Waters” I repeated “I’m Burke” and indicating my wife “this is my colleague Hare.”

Not a flicker. This guardian of the deceased didn’t even look up. Perhaps it was with the expectation that it was only after burial that messers Burke and Hare collected bodies, that the names had not registered.

“Oh right, yes here we are.”

Her finger taps the appropriate name on the page and from beneath the desk she produces a large carrier of burgundy card containing a burgundy plastic screw top jar.

“There we are, the certificate’s in the carrier.”

I pass this to my wife as I am required now to sign a receipt, although I cannot for the life of me imagine that this is necessary; do people really go around randomly collecting the ashes of the dear departed? I am tempted to sign it William Burke, but resist.

As we step outside my wife begins to wander off in the direction of the town.

“Where are you going? The car park is this way.”

“I thought we’d have a little wander round the town.”

“What, carrying Mother’s ashes?”

“Well… she might like to have a last look around.”

We deposit the ashes in the car.

Trying to find the hotel we’ve booked, sans satnav, proves more difficult than we could have ever imagined. Written instructions prove confusing, come off the M5 at junction 29, Travelodge is visible to the left – how confusing can that be? – without however, the help of the satnav what, on the map, appears to be a village in the middle of nowhere, turns out to be a thriving metropolis and, it’s rush hour. Enquiries as to where the Travelodge hotel is situated, are met with enthusiastic gargling and animated arm waving, none of which, when put into practise, are remotely correct. Eventually, despite the deluded attentions of the natives, we arrive at our destination but only to find both staff and guests shuffling about the car park. With fervent dedication to duty Devon’s answer to Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub are making ready to take on any conflagration that the hotel’s fire bell’s clanging might be warning of, we wait. Some twenty minutes later Pugh and chums satisfy themselves that no such conflagration is about to take place and declare the building conflagration free. We all troop into reception; some twenty odd in number. Many, apparently on a charity bicycle ride, are dressed in curiously colourful, and unbecoming in so many cases, skin tight lycra garb. They drag their velocipedes, panniers and spare tyres behind them into reception.

Reception, now looking more like the Wright brothers’ workshop and quite obviously unused to such activity, dissolves into chaos.

The following morning, in bright sunshine, we arrive at the appointed church, at the appointed hour, blue and burgundy carriers to hand. To our surprise a hole has already been dug and, with the conclusion of youthful trumpet lessons at the back of the Nave, the Reverend gentleman makes his presence known and eagerly addresses the paperwork.

“Ah, yes, cheque… amount… signed… seems fine, oh and yes, so do the certificates. Excellent. Shall we?”

We step outside and do ‘the reading’, a short service of interment on completion of which it is beholden of me to empty the ashes into the ground. I am fascinated by the fact that they are of differing colours. One being of a slightly bluish grey hue, the other slightly pinkish. Might Father’s, being the blue, and Mother’s the pink, be proof positive of the Almighty being sexually discriminatory? If so to what end? Did he perhaps have an inkling that in or around week thirty six of adding Eve to Adam’s garden there could be a nice little earner were he to create Mattel and with it Barbie and Ken? Or, was it simply an ingress of colour from the plastic containers? Or, yet still, was it perhaps that the coffins they were cremated in were of different woods and thereby affecting the ashes colouring? Do they even burn the coffins? Is it perhaps cremators’ perks that they can sidle them out round the back.

“Here Cyril, got a nice one for you today my handsome, look at ’unn, lovely bit o’ light oak with genuine brass ’andles, not a mark on ’um. An’ that little plaque what they do put on top on um’ come off a treat. Might ’ave to change the linin’ though mate, but otherwise…”

The ashes tipped I engage the Reverend gentleman in cordial chit-chat regarding the pleasantness of the churchyard and the setting, informing him that my Mother had been born and brought up in the thatched cottage opposite and how it seemed appropriate that she should be returned here.

Unfortunately, as one is apt to do on these occasions, I strayed somewhat from the nub and thrust of family history to relate the events of Salisbury’s ashes collection. Mentioning the Williams’ Burke and Hare, had a similarly bemusing effect on the Reverent gentleman.

“Burke and Hare.” I repeated “The body snatchers…? Indeed if memory serves, murderers as well… ultimately hanged for it.”

Vaguely enlightened but equally unimpressed, his Reverence smiled wanly. I am perplexed, one would have thought a gentleman in his forties, especially a Reverent gent of the Ecclesiastical persuasion, whose stock in trade, at least in part, is dealing with cadavers would have been better versed in such folklore.

At this point my wife, who as ever had been standing patiently listening to my ramblings, and fearing perhaps the Reverend gentleman’s making of a swift phone call to the nearest establishment for the mentally unstable, interrupted my flow and dragged me away with the suggestion that most probably the good priest had further ministrations to perform that morning and we should not delay him any further.

“Can you believe that?” I said again as we walked away. “He didn’t know who Burke and Hare were either.”

My wife stopped and glared at me, exasperated.

“What? What now?”

“Just get in the car will you… ‘though I have to agree he should have known about Burke at least, after all he’s been talking at one for the last half an hour.”

“Yes dear.”

If you have been, thanks for reading, and if it has amused you, do please tell your friends.