The Big Sleep

Back in the Middle Ages, clergymen found that there were plenty of people willing to slip them a few extra groats to 'intercede' on behalf of a dearly departed family member - some additional prayers to ease the deceased a bit further along the difficult road to salvation. If eternal peace stood to be gained, then it no doubt seemed like money well spent to the supplicants.

The modern funeral industry has also found death to be a highly lucrative business - but while Medieval mourners at least knew what they wanted for their money, it is by no means clear why we should choose The Last Supper coffin for £2000 over The Woodcote at only £795; whether an inflatable pillow is necessary; which - if any - mortuary gown, standard male and female or luxury male and female (satin finish front), should be the final outfit; and whether a deluxe elasticated interior is superior to the elasticated satin interior. 1

The chief undertaker at London's W. A. Truelove & Son Ltd. explains that, really, the choice of coffin comes down to 'personal preference in styling' - an admirably vague notion. But it must be difficult to resist the thought that more must surely be more, particularly when you are being encouraged to do so at a time of vulnerability. W. A. Truelove & Son's most expensive coffin is about two and a half grand, but they point out that this is a snip compared to the price of caskets in the US, where you can pay as much as £12,000 for a coffin designed to 'protect the body from the environment, and the environment from the body for countless tomorrows'.

It is perhaps not so unexpected that a challenge to this situation should originate from the 'alternative' elements in British society, who resist the forces of capitalism in all their manifestations - including the Grim Reaper with dollar signs in his eye sockets. The Natural Death Organisation, the largest body concerned with cheaper and more ecologically-sound burials, is just one venture set up by the Institute for Social Inventions: a think-tank whose founder and director, until his death in 1998, was Nicholas Saunders - he of E for Ecstasy (1995) fame. Saunders' other brainchildren include the 'Indoor Fishpond', and the 'Dole as Aid' scheme, whereby the long term unemployed are encouraged to live in Third World countries so that their dole money makes them feel rich whilst simultaneously contributing to their adopted country's economy. Although these 'alternative' ideas might make you consider joining the police force to defend the establishment, the Natural Death Organisation seems capable of a wide-ranging and genuine appeal. One does not have to wear hand-knitted vegan shoes to feel that the available options for the marking of a death are inadequate, and that an eco-friendly integration with nature is perhaps the most fitting way to dispose of a body.

The Natural Death Organisation provides practical support for people wanting an alternative to a conventional burial as organised by a traditional funeral director. Their services encompass everything from information about the requirements of the law concerning the dead, contact details of woodland burial sites, and providers of cardboard coffins, to DIY lessons in sewing your own shroud. The Natural Death Organisation also has several suggestions for replacements for the standard mahogany coffin: some, like the cardboard box favoured by Dame Barbara Cartland, are plausible, others less so. Funerary urns made of poultry excrement, for example; I would certainly not have envisaged returning to my maker in a chicken-shit tub.

Alternative burials certainly seem to be popular: this year, the number of woodland burial sites in various locations throughout the UK will have increased by nearly 50% to 130. One of the reasons for this popularity might well be that woodland burial allows for all kinds of funerals - a ceremony that can be religious or secular, rather than a ritual inherited from the Victorians and affiliated to a church which, in many cases, had no spiritual significance to the body when sentient.

Performance is crucial to a rite of passage, and, as Christianity is still the cultural norm for most Britons, funerals tend to be a bizarre amalgamation of stumbling religiosity and Victorian theatricality. As Sue Gill and John Fox write in the Dead Good Funerals Book (1996), 'the Victorians "invented" the coffin, the hearse, the black clothes, granite memorials, burial gowns, drapes, and most of all the job of funeral director. We unquestioningly go on... the only difference is that petrol is used instead of horsepower to pull the hearse.' Fox and Gill have theatrical backgrounds: they founded the Welfare State International in 1968, and have since been involved in community theatre, festivals, and participatory performance. In recent years, they have organised two-day workshops entitled 'Funerals and How to Make them More Personal'. They feel that the techniques which are the tools of their trade are perfectly adapted to funerals, where an awareness of performance and the staging of a unique event is fundamental in creating a sense of significance. Their approach, they suggest, will help make a funeral into a meaningful celebration, rather than, as is often the case, a crisis management endurance test.

Artists are another group to offer alternatives, in the form of specially painted coffins reflecting the hobbies and interests of the deceased, as a personal service for the bereaved. (However, coffins decorated with the future occupier's treasured motorbike, or their football team's colours, smack somewhat of a teenager rather clumsily 'personalising' their bedroom with favourite band posters, magazine pictures, and snapshots of their friends.) At present, those involved in the alternative funeral scene sincerely want to provide options for individuals who feel that the vast array of conventional paraphernalia does not address their needs. It is rather like the difference between hand-knitted Fair Isle sweaters at a craft fair, and high street shoppers in the metropolis - cottage-industry and late capitalist approaches to individualism. But this is bound to change as the trend becomes stronger. It can only be a matter of time before there's a magazine devoted to coffin decoration and funeral styling - complete with glossy double-page-spreads to die for...