Just a golf club and a table tennis racket placed at the foot of a coffin.
Let’s be honest, crematoriums are not attractive places. Sometimes corporate, sometimes municipal – and usually, in a clumsy way, trying to be a “chapel”. (There are honourable exceptions, Friockheim.)
And, the pressure of schedules is always there, squeezing the ceremony into a twenty-minute straitjacket.
But it is possible to bring reverence into the proceeding. A well crafted eulogy, a sense of dignified ceremony. And sometimes a few touches can help transform the space. Like a naval flag, British Legion standard bearers and a bugler. Or a brass Buddha and three tea light candles. Roses placed on the coffin.
And today it was a golf club and a racket placed at the foot of the coffin.