My uncle passed away recently and his funeral didn’t reflect him at all.
He wasn’t a church goer but the lady was doing all this stuff from the bible. She had never met him ,obviously had a few facts about him and then fluffed them out to fill the alotted time.
The only ” real bit” was my cousin said a few words and when they played Hole in the ground by Bernard Cribbens which totally summed up his wicked sense of humour.
In my mind it would have been better for us all to spend a bit of time remembering our favourite time with him , a few words by anyone that knew him , Bernard Cribbens ,then pub to have a few yarns.
What “alternative” non religious funerals have you been to?

I have been to a couple of humanist funerals. Appropriate and apt for the person. Friends and family spoke and jokes were made.

For example one chap who died of too much smoking and drinking – we walked in to “cigarettes and alcohol” by Oasis which made loads of folk try to stifle laughter and he went to be burnt to ” Rehab” Amy whinehouse.

Another friend was played out to ” always look on the bright side of life” with people singing along.

Humanist as well, friend who had melanoma was brought in to don’t blame it on the sunshine !

Oh thats nippy!

Yep, humanist funerals are great. Been to a couple

My uncles was a real celebration, which reflected him perfectly. He was one of the wittiest and most charming blokes you could ever meet, who couldn’t have led a fuller life. He was scathing of religion

So at his humanist funeral, all black clothing was banned, and everyone had to wear something bright pink. It was a beautiful sunny day, and everyone was decked out in bright summer clothes, and we sent him off in style!! 😀

The melenoma one is brilliant.

Yup been to a couple of humanist services, they are the way forward for me.

My dad’s was good (apart from the obvious ****ness). He had terminal cancer and had a reasonable chance to arrange some of it himself. He was in motorcycle sidecar followed by everybody else on bikes. A few close friends said some nicely prepared words and his drinking buddies wrote a song. Very informal service, just like him, followed by relaxed drinking. Absolutely what he would’ve wanted, just rubbish that he wasn’t there.

I mean look it was awful, he was 33 but by crikey he’d lived a bit and was a very very funny man. Love him and that had me in floods of hysterical tears, mostly laughter. Which is EXACTLY what he intended.

A mates funeral, humanist with a coffin draped in carrots( he was a chief and “carrots are important”)friends spoke for him the music was a rock anthem. A wake at a club decorated with huge portrait photos of him I’m happy times and an ash scattering on whitby beach made surreal by his dogs going into the waves to try and eat the ashes. All intimate personal noble and tragicomic just like the man .

I quite ” liked ” my dad’s too again the service was by a friend who knew him and it had a comic moment when he couldn’t make the coffin vanish . it was incredibility comforting to see all the local and family support for my mum.

A good mate died a few years ago aged 48 of an inoperable brain tumour and he had a “green” burial at a local “Alternative burial site” in a secluded valley, seeing as we were of that age to grow up throughout the “techno-techno-techno” years his wish was for all of us to “just drop me in the hole then go rip the tits off it, so we organised a big techno old school style rave to celebrate his life. Needless to say we certainly sent him off in style with a Funktion 1 sound system and a rather excessive amount of lasers and lighting rigs topped off by a choice of our fav DJ’s we had previously booked over the years (we used to organise the dance tents at the wickerman festival) , it was quite a 16hr party/celebration of his love of life and dancing like a loon for hours on end.

Been to a couple recently. My wife’s mum was a real character and we all felt we didn’t want the anonymous life-of delivered by a god-botherer who didn’t know her so we arranged for family and friends who wanted to to tell stories and memories. Even one or two of her (young) great grandchildren joined in with tales, and brought tears to our eyes. Such a satisfying feeling to celebrate a unique person. Second one was my brother who died recently at an early age because of his life of fun, sorry drink and drug abuse. That was even more informal, as befitted his character. We had him cremated and held the wake at his house, out in the garden down from his cannabis farm, sat around under a tree he had saved from my mother’s neglect, and scattered his ashes there while telling our stories, laughing and crying in equal measure. So much more satisfying to diy to reflect the life of the deceased, from both funerals we all came away feeling much better

All those sound amazing.
Will investigate humanist funerals.
Ideally I’d like to be burnt on a hill at sunset.

Aye, my grandad’s. He was 98, led an amazing life, killed nazis, was a business leader in Scotland, developed radar.

In short, all the things no one will say about me after my death!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-dr-william-robertson-cbe-98-1-2441805/amp?espv=1

You know you can talk to clergymen about what to have in a funeral, there is quite a lot of flexibility – including music.

My Uncle’s was ‘nice’, it was in the church next door to where he lived but the music was all Pink Floyd.

Was at one yesterday, Mrs EGF’s aunt’s funeral. Crematorium only & the registrar did the words. She gave a good & very humorous account of the old ladies life. Even I smiled & I’d never met her.

FiL’s funeral was humanist (I think, there was a full-on atheist option as well if you’re feeling militant). Followed by a trip to his local (for a good 8 hours!) which did a spread folowed by takeaway. Quite an enjoyable day despite the context.

I’ve only been to one funeral, my father-in-law passed away fairly suddenly earlier this year. It was a fairly standard ceremony at the crem followed by a wake at a local hotel.

It wasn’t a humanist do, but there was no religion involved. Just his oldest brother, his daughter (my wife) and his son doing a wee speech each. Just great stories about him and his life, had everyone alternately in tears and fits of laughter.

One of the great things was the number of people who showed up. His partner had arranged it and, being relatively recent in his life, hadn’t really appreciated how popular and influential he had been in his younger days (small town, he knew and was known by everyone). It was standing room only, really brought home how much of a positive impact he’d had in his life.

A few civilised drinks after with extended family staying long into the night swapping stories. As others have said, not a great day in the grand scheme of things, but a great send-off.

Never heard of humanist funerals, will have to find out more.

Being a huge fan of the Prodigy in my younger years, i have told Mrs G i want to be cremated with Firestarter playing. And everyone has to wear shorts. I always wear shorts (cycling baggy style not speedos) so everyone else can wear shorts for a change.

Neither of these requests have gone down well.

two that stand out.

First was in Cornwall with the most amazing view from the crem – I was young so can’t remember if the rest of it was good but it was an amazing setting.

The second was made personal by a long, well researched and very personal eulogy. The reader is a very good raconteur which helps.

My Dad’s last year was excellent apart from the obvious lack of my Dad. Humanist service followed by a woodland burial. He wasn’t a big fan of religion. It was standing room only and my wife & son played one his favourite pieces on piano & clarinet respectively (big kudos to both of them). My sister & I did the eulogy on a sort of tag team approach & got lots of laughs (mainly down to my sister to be fair). Afterwards it was just really good to catch up with old friends. People still tell my mum that it was the best funeral they’ve been to.

family friend died of a brain tumour a few years back, she had time to arrange her own funeral which was a ‘wear purple’ theme and a humanist ceremony at the natural burial place below Newlands Corner.

It was a sad but lovely do, but the highlight was their young son piping up during a heartbreaking letter from the deceased to her friends “Dad, when you’ve finished reading that can we go to Burger King?”

Kids at funerals – tough one that but it was her wish that her kids weren’t alone on the day – and the burial ground pulled a master stroke when after the burial, the horse drawn cart that carried her coffin to the graveside starting running rides for the kids.

A celebration of life, rather than a mourning.

Good is utterly debatable, but one moment of my Grandad’s stuck out. He was a soldier in WWII, and a prisoner of war. The service was a fairly by-the-book one in a church in Kendal (he had, at least, been a regular church goer). Two of his old unit/Legion friends had deliberately waited by the door as everyone else filed in. Unplanned, unknown to us as the family, and also only announced to the undertakers at the last second, he was escorted in by two of his unit pals flying the Union Jack and the Legion flag. I may have cried at that point, but it was a perfectly fitting send off.

Had my dads a week ago tuesday. Similar to the OP, it was a fairly stale affair with some religious stuff. Still, it was standing room only in the crem and the send off was something he’d have loved to be at. That just made me even more sad. He was an ex-prison officer, and the jail went to skeleton staff and they put a coach on. Some ex-inmates came to pay their respects too, which was nice.The bar must have pulled more money on that tuesday than they ever had, it was shoulder to shoulder. Still got stiffed £250 for about 10 sandwiches and a few bags of crisps.

I’ll be going for the lowest cost humanist funeral possible. All of my paperwork will be in order, easily identifiable with clear instructions regarding how to find my will and all of my other odds and sods. It’s bloody hard sorting out after someone passes especially if you have to try and piece it all together from scraps and unread mail.

This is an interesting thread! 🙂 All of our funerals have been church-based, although I’d put good money on none of the, er, customers being regular or even infrequent church-goers – all nominally C of E even if none of them practiced. You die, you have a church service, you get burnt and spread/buried, that’s how our lot roll.

Couple of funerals last year – one was my uncle and godfather, I was honoured to be asked to deliver the eulogy, put a bunch of words together and ran it by my aunt, real privilege even if he wasn’t the most sociable or even likeable chap, it was more about doing a good job for my aunt and other friends and relatives (as, I think, are most things funeral).

The other was my cousin – genuinely lovely and funny chap, beset with health problems all through his life and never once uttered a word of complaint. One of his workmates delivered a genuinely brilliant eulogy, proper laugh-out-loud in a way I wish I could be! The kicker (and I swear, if there IS an afterlife, he’d have been laughing his head off) was that he was a massive, massive motor racing fan, so his mum arranged for her friend to play track seven off of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which you will all know as The Chain, second half of which being the classic BBC Grand Prix theme – sadly, her friend played track six, the distinctly less striking (and far more mournful, which was not the idea at all!) Songbird. It’d never work if you tried to plan it.