And death shall have no dominion

Funerals I have been to in my life:

• 1 grandmother. My first and quite weepy.
• 2 elderly great aunts. Sad but dry eyed. Elderly great aunts die - it's a fact of life. More fraught was the fact that they alternated with:
• 2 children. A 4-year-old with a hole in the heart, and a 15-year-old with cancer. Both heartbreaking. I didn't know either of them but I worked with their parents. The 15-year-old's classmates all turned up and we exited to Tubthumping; and while I don't advocate bumping off the occasional teenager from time to time pour encourager les autres, I'm betting his friends all went back to their homes a little more seasoned and mature than they left that morning.

And then there was today's. Someone I didn't know well and only saw occasionally - but, I'm pleased to say, someone I had begun to chat to on the few occasions we did meet. I speak of the Boy's father who died a week before Christmas.

An interesting day. I'm sure the hearse was trying to very slowly shake us off en route from funeral parlour to crematorium, though that might just be the twists and turns of the Bournemouth road system. At the other cremations I've been to the coffin was put on a moving belt that would take it beyond a pair of doors at the key moment. Here I was interested to see it was placed on a plinth that would sink down into the floor; but we were all ushered out before the key moment came, so I hereby give notice to anyone who outlives me that I want everyone's last sight of me to be sinking down like the anti-Wurlitzer. The service was led by my ex-mother-in-law-in-law's Salvation Army captain, then after for tea and sandwiches at the deceased's local bowls club. The deceased's boa-owning neighbour commented how much he had liked the service; "very light, not hitting you over the head". Well, quite, like all the best under the counter evangelism.

Readings were from Psalms and Corinthians and Dylan Thomas. Musicwise, we came in to "Be still for the presence of the Lord" and left to the Stuart Townsend version of "The Lord's my shepherd". But somehow it's a completely different tune that sticks in my mind, due to the fact that the outfit worn by the rather formidable chief lady undertaker was very reminiscent of this lady ...

Am I a bad person?