SO PLEASE REMEMBER

Have got Last Night of the Proms on, in the background......just had "hail the Conquering Hero" being whistled.   It is also the hymn tune "Thine be the Glory, Risen Conquering Lord".   So, for  posterity, please let it be noted that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want it whistled at my funeral!!! :D :D :D

Margot

Yup - remembered that - Judas Maccabeus by Handel :)

Daisy

That's the tune I came into the church to when I married! :D We had an incredible argument with the organist about it - he didn't want to play it, and it went to a diocesian meeting and was accepted by the bishop because it was a hymn tune!

In the order of service it had to be listed as "March from Judas Maccabeus" and not "See, the conquering hero comes" to placate the organist! :rolleyes:

That's it!!!! Thank you Daisy :D

i am having nothing like that played at my funeral, i am having the song by queen fat bottomed girls and i am having a big party at our local hall, with balloons and banners etc and no body must wear black,
all my girls no this is my wishes also my closest friends, when i told my family this is what i wished they all laughed and said they thought as much, i already know of a coffin maker that makes cardboard coffins with any designs on it you want, my mum is having a coffin from this man with butterflies all over it, you can preorder then they come flat packed and you can store them mum is ordering hers in the next few weeks and going to store it behind the wardrobe so dad does not freak out that it is under the bed.
carolann

Oh gosh, you morbid lot!!! :-D  I can't even contemplate thinking about my funeral, I don't have a clue what I would want.

All I do know is that I want to be buried not cremated, all my family whom have been cremated have just been forgotten about, there is nothing of significance to go and talk to or leave flowers on, a rose bush or cremation stone just isn't that person, at least a grave gives a feeling of the person still there, whether it is visited much or not, when you have the need you can still go there and imagine the person there. My grandparents and father have just disappeared, I actually feel cheated, so definitely want a grave.

I couldn't give tuppence what happens to me when I go.  Find the cheapest funeral and spend saved money on something cheerful like a knees up. 

I definitely DON'T want a grave :D :D There is too much land lost to graveyards and most of the graves are never visited. I don't want 'to be' in a hole in the ground because I won't be there :D :D I'll be wherever my family think of me (haunting them :D :D ) :) Certainly the cheapest funeral for me too :)

Daisy

my MIL will always have a piece of her father with her as when he was cremated she had a locket made with part of his ashes in it (all sealed off) so she always has a part of him with her. Her brother done a trinket box the same and her sister didn't like the thought of it so didn't join in. The rest of his ashes were scattered at a very memorabla place for him and all the family and is often visited.... I have also heard (could have this wrong though) that they can make a diamond (or something similar) out of the ashes once you have been cremated   I am hoping now i have said that that it wasn't on april fools day :rolleyes:

I've heard that as well, not sure if it was a diamond but it was something to wear. I want Queen's, Don't stop me now played at mine

yes it is true.  Watched a really fascinating programme on it not so long ago.  They basically extract some of the carbon from the ashes which in turn are pressurized etc etc, things added and voila ........a diamond :D.  cost ranges from around 7,000 upwards (very small one for this price).  You get the ashes back once they have finished but because they apparently use only a  very minute amount of ash, its very hard to say that your loved one was made into a diamond....:rolleyes:

as for funerals, neither myself or OH have decided on any details yet but need to soon as we have just had our first draft back for our wills and it lacks any direction on this front etc.  Although with him being in the Navy, his hymns/songs are sorted out as they are all naval/sea going ones..

I disagree. Our village graveyard is very well used, visited and maintained. Its also the one place they can't build houses on.

there are some grave yards so neglected it is pitifull to see, i have to agree some are beautiful , but what happens to your grave if your line of the family dies out or moves away, there is no one around to tend your grave, my grandparents where both cremated and my mother and her brother bought two rose bushes and planted them in their own gardens and if they ever moved house the bushes could come with them
carolann

Being a whinger myself.... I want on my grave stone "See, told you I was ill"...lol :)

Often if you move away from the area you can pay a nominal sum to the church and they'll organise someone to keep the grave tidy. Personally I love wandering round churchyards reading the old headstones and wondering about the 'inhabitants'. The very old ones are either romantically overgrown (ignites my curiosity) but others are still kept mown - or, as happens in quite of few of the churchyards around here, grazed by sheep! :)

Oh so glad you said that, I do love looking around graveyards too and reading all the names, and looking at the different graves, tombs and styles, I like to imagine the people and what they were like. I find graveyards peaceful and calming as well as sad. The funniest thing I ever saw in a graveyard was a family having a picnic on a piece of grass there, talk about making yourself at home.:rolleyes:

My parents moved after the war, back to the village they had lived in before the war, and where my brother Ian, who died at 3 months of age, was buried in our local churchyard.    Like many childrens' graves in the 1930s, it was marked by just a tiny wooden cross.  When I was about 7 or 8 years of age, my little sisters and I found it (we thought) and for a whole year, we "played" with our baby brother, making his grave nice and tidy, putting flowers on it, and generally looking after it.   (We didn't tell my mum or dad as we didn't want to upset them).  However, it turned out that we were looking after another baby's grave.     When my mum died in 1981, she was cremated, and her ashes were buried near Ian's grave, next to our local bobby's grave, and next but one to my brother-in-laws.    When my brother in law died, and my sister went up to look after his grave, her youngest son was 8 and he would cycle into the graveyard, shouting "hello Dad".

Personally, I want lots of fantastic music at my funeral......then please pop me onto the compost heap ! :)

Margot

Oh Margot, you are worth a lot more than THAT! :-D

Not when I'm dead I'm not :D - plant a tree or two yes - but let me put something back :D

I received this some time ago ....think it sums up my philosophy nicely

Made me think...

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment, a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and, for all practical purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instil artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my death bed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let whatever is usable be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to a teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of a car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist. Take my bones, every nerve and muscle in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that some day, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a cricket bat, and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.

Burn what is left and scatter my ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudiceagainst my fellow man. Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God.

If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you, if you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

Margot

Margot - that's wonderful :) Exactly how I feel :)

> If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudiceagainst my fellow man. Give my sins to the devil

and I thought that I wouldn't be leaving a lot behind - quite a large hole needed :D :D :D

Daisy

Very potent Margot... exactly how I feel also....

When my Dad had died two years ago, we were standing outside the little church in the cemetery just before the service/cremation, and a man with a small girl were taking a short-cut through the cemetery, and she was jumping around on them rather than walk on the path with her Dad - it made me feel quite cross.
I was always taught to show respect and not walk on peoples graves when I was small, and I still wouldn't now.

My Mum had been buried 18 years previously, and it had quite upset me. Dad left word in his will that he wished to be cremated - the last gesture he ever made for me, and I wasn't able to thank him in person. His ashes are buried with my Mum.

One of our eldest sons colleauges died and had 'Always Look on The Bright Side' played at his funeral.

As for me, I told my sons to be glad for me if I ever 'fell off my perch' whilst working, for I'd have died happy and without distress.

A very good friend has specified that on his tombstone he wants, in very tiny letters-

"If you can read this you're standing on my bol***cks"

Obviously for blokes only, but made me laugh...

"Obviously for blokes only, but made me laugh... "

Yes, but still funny!
I like what Spike Milligan had on his headstone: "I told you I was ill...."

I want... "She lived to the ripe old age of 102.... only the good die young" :D

My dad had a friend called Adam Fox. His chosen epitaph was: "A FOX. GONE TO GROUND" :D

It was deemed unsuitable, and not allowed. :( :rolleyes:

Thats brilliant! I like that. How stuffy not to allow it.

Quick dispatch for me hessian  bag and a woodland plot, no flower donations to breed rescue, simple quick, and one recycled granny, just like that

Lynn

All you need is a body bag and the death certificate and someone with a large car boot to take you to the crem......total cost around £80.
Me, I'm going to float down the Dordogne in little bits to the sound of Hoagy Carmicheal's 'Stardust'
Then when I meet up with all my dogs that are already up there we will have a right old wingding.
Jan