…or are these ones true?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
No. 3: A company offering the expensive service of deep freezing and preserving corpses of wealthy folk who hoped that future generations would be able to revive them back to life, went in liquidation. Because of unpaid bills the electricity supply was cut off and the bodies went into a similar state to that of the company.
No. 4: A woodland burial site, which banned metal-lined coffins and embalmed bodies for ecological reasons, was confronted with the dilemma of a man, already buried there, being joined by his wife, who died while holidaying abroad. Air safety regulations require a sealed coffin and embalmed body.
No 5: A crematorium which linked up a CCTV camera to the internet so services could be watched by those mourners unable to attend, charged a family £75 for the password that enabled friends to log on. The local paper ran the headline, ‘Funeral pay-per-view storm’.
No 6: Church of England officials are in talks with the Ministry of Justice about relaxing regulations placed on memorial design in churchyards to move in line with secular cemeteries. Torn between modernisation and heritage, they can’t make up their mind if it’s the decent thing to do to allow teddy bears, toy cars, kerb stones, chippings, wind chimes, battery-operated lanterns, memorial photos contained in cartouches, and multicoloured plastic gravestones emblazoned with the word, ‘Mum’.
As far as bringing a body across a border, yes, they do have to be embalmed and in a zinc lined coffin, but that does not mean they have to be buried in one.
And most natural burial grounds will use, or should use their discretion in a situation like that. It is an ethical dilemma, and most of them allow this under exceptional circumstances.
This is turning into a quiz. In the late seventies the Cryonics Society of California went into simultaneous meltdown with its dead frozen people.
I doubt whether 6 is true. The C of E has its own legal structures to deal with this and I can’t see them freeing up any time soon.
No 5.
I know that there is a charge for the privilege of ‘attending’ a virtual funeral – there is a cost involved in the process of streaming to a secure website and you wouldn’t necessarily want that to be in the public domain so there is password enabled access. Our crem uses a company that does this for them and the funeral remains online for a week to be accessed by anyone with the password – so it’s not exactly pay per view – the family sends the password to those who need it.
Jed is right here – the crematorium is offering a service at a price – whta’s the issue? They’re charging £75 for streaming the service to verified friends and relations – what should they do? Put it on YouTube?