Funeral Blues
Mate,
Paid last respects to a colleague on Friday. Howard used to be my boss back at the DfT before he grabbed the voluntary redundancy package with both hands and ran, laughing, to a job with a local authority. Unfortunately then diagnosed with colon cancer and that was it.
Gathered in pub before-hand with Fat Andy and Haircut Steve to discuss tactics. Principally, what religion was Howard? Some concern that, being Welsh, he might be some sort of fundamentalist Chapel type, further concern that the whole thing might degenerate into a muslim type affair with everyone hitting themselves on the head and the coffin draped in a Palastinian flag. There was then general agreement to stop being silly.
In the event, it was a humanist ceremony. This meant that the music at the start was 'Summertime…and the living is easy' and that there were poems and so on. Only at the end, with Howard's brother and a friend singing a hymn in Welsh, did the 'celebration of life' stage move on to 'we are quite sad'. Nobody, not even the Arabs, do grief like the Celts.
Back to pub and obvious post-match analysis along the lines of 'you won't get that many people at my funeral' and choice of songs for service, ranging from traditional ('Angels') to modern ('Angels - remixed by Fatboy Slim') to just silly 'sheep may safely graze'.
One less decent bloke around - sickening really.
Paid last respects to a colleague on Friday. Howard used to be my boss back at the DfT before he grabbed the voluntary redundancy package with both hands and ran, laughing, to a job with a local authority. Unfortunately then diagnosed with colon cancer and that was it.
Gathered in pub before-hand with Fat Andy and Haircut Steve to discuss tactics. Principally, what religion was Howard? Some concern that, being Welsh, he might be some sort of fundamentalist Chapel type, further concern that the whole thing might degenerate into a muslim type affair with everyone hitting themselves on the head and the coffin draped in a Palastinian flag. There was then general agreement to stop being silly.
In the event, it was a humanist ceremony. This meant that the music at the start was 'Summertime…and the living is easy' and that there were poems and so on. Only at the end, with Howard's brother and a friend singing a hymn in Welsh, did the 'celebration of life' stage move on to 'we are quite sad'. Nobody, not even the Arabs, do grief like the Celts.
Back to pub and obvious post-match analysis along the lines of 'you won't get that many people at my funeral' and choice of songs for service, ranging from traditional ('Angels') to modern ('Angels - remixed by Fatboy Slim') to just silly 'sheep may safely graze'.
One less decent bloke around - sickening really.
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