Author Topic: Buried then cremated?  (Read 2732 times)

Offline andrewalston

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Re: Buried then cremated?
« Reply #18 on: Thursday 17 June 21 20:35 BST (UK) »
When my gran died, we found scribbled notes with conflicting instructions about her funeral wishes. She named the funeral directors - her late husband had worked for them as a taxi driver - but also wanted my dad to take her on her last ride.

The funeral director came up with a solution. They would take the coffin to the crematorium, and my dad could take the ashes to be interred at her local church.

In a drawer, we found the large brass-covered cigarette box containing the ashes of her late husband (that's him on the left). It was locked. My mum knew the locksmith who had maintained all the locks at the large site where she worked, but had retired many years before, and gave him a ring to ask whether he could help.

"Was it a State Express 555 cigarette box?" It was. "I put that lock on."

So 81-year-old Johnny opened the lock that he had installed 55 years earlier.

The ashes were joined together and my dad did drive her on her final journey, to be buried by the church wall.
Looking at ALSTON in south Ribble area, ALSTEAD and DONBAVAND/DUNBABIN etc. everywhere, HOWCROFT and MARSH in Bolton and Westhoughton, PICKERING in the Whitehaven area.

Census information is Crown Copyright. See www.nationalarchives.gov.uk for details.