Before I had ever been to a funeral, I imagined what it would be like: a grim, depressing affair. The sky would be leaden and there would be rain. There would be deeply sorrowful music – Adagio in G minor by Albinoni, a verbose elegy, stiff hymns, muffled sobbing, regulatory prayers and afterwards egg sandwiches, polite chatter and weak cups of tea. But this version of a funeral has changed in recent years and has become more relaxed and celebratory, perhaps in line with declining church attendance. A recent Co-op Funeralcare study found that 68 per cent of people agreed that funerals should be more of a celebration of life, up from 58 per cent in 2019. The report also notes that black is no longer the required colour to wear to a funeral and location requests have become increasingly outlandish, including a London bus and – improbably – an angling pavilion.  

In the past eight months, I have been to three funerals and a memorial – thankfully not one in an angling pavilion or a bus. They have been edifying, beautiful, majestic and, woven through the tears and sadness, there has been laughter and humour and dizzying fun. Not fun in the sense of frolicking on the dance floor or flirting by the bar but in seeing old friends and meeting new ones – a Celtic singer in Dublin at my aunt’s funeral, a literary editor........

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