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AIBU?

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Original poster

Am I a pearl clutcher?

211 replies

Pawse · 27/04/2025 21:06

I’m genuinely interested whether I’m being unreasonable in being completely shocked by what I witnessed today.

I’m away with my family on a European beach holiday and we were on one of those Cruise and Swim trips that you can take in most touristy places.

We were at the first stop at a beautiful clear blue lagoon. The water was shallow, full of fish and an idyllic place for snorkelling.

Most of the adults and kids jumped in and were having a great time splashing about and snorkelling. I didn’t go in as I was taking pictures, but really it was too bloody cold for me.

Anyway, a woman clutching a jam jar with a ribbon around it, started performance crying. I thought the jar had some fine dirty looking sand in it. It was only 1/4 full.

She started sniffing and dabbing her eyes saying “Goodbye Martin.” Then her male partner/friend jumped in the water. She then passed the jam jar to her male friend and said “This is what Martin would have wanted,” at which point I realised in horror that the “sand” was actually some poor bloke’s ashes.

I expected the male friend to at least swim to the other side of the boat away from the main groups of swimming families, but he just swam to the edge of them. I was desperately trying to see where my kids were so didn’t actually see him “scatter” them, luckily my kids were the other side of the main groups.

The woman was comforted by a female friend when the male friend came back onboard. It all happened so quickly.

So am I being unreasonable to think when you scatter someone’s ashes at sea you do it discreetly on the edge of a quiet beach or empty them (again discreetly) at the back of a boat when it’s moving. Or even hire a bloody motorboat and do it privately and with dignity NOT do it beside families who are swimming and enjoying a lovely holiday day out.

I am still absolutely flabbergasted, but maybe I’m a pearl clutcher and just didn’t know it!

OP posts:
Pippa12 · 27/04/2025 22:10

I agree with you- gross! Although I find public pools and the sea gross to swim in and get in either next to never! I wouldn’t fancy abit of martins fingernail inadvertently finding its way into my gob

Tortielady · 27/04/2025 22:05

Apparently, we humans are rattling with microplastics and it can accumulate in bone tissue. That might bother me a bit, but it's unlikely that Martin will significantly add to what's already in the sea. I agree with a pp who pointed to sewage and chemicals as a bigger issue than human ashes.

HunnyPot · 27/04/2025 22:05

Was someone recording it? It sounds very performative.

godmum56 · 27/04/2025 22:05

DiscoBeat · 27/04/2025 22:04

If it was a jam jar I think Martin was most likely a cat or something!

Well unless its a Turkish Van, its gonna HATE that!

TheAppledoesnt · 27/04/2025 22:04

What’s all this talk of gravitas and dignity. Martin is dead. He doesn’t give a fuck. All these ‘ceremonies’ are for the living - and this is obviously what they wanted to do.

DiscoBeat · 27/04/2025 22:04

If it was a jam jar I think Martin was most likely a cat or something!

LoveTKO · 27/04/2025 22:04

I’m with you OP. Scatter where people aren’t going to get a gob full of Martin. Uncouth.

Evilspiritgin · 27/04/2025 22:03

I’m presuming that those swimming will have probably already swam through someone’s bodily fluids without adding a 10th of Martin into the mix

Funnywonder · 27/04/2025 22:02

5128gap · 27/04/2025 21:53

Oh come now. Assailed? The guy poured some fine dust into the sea, he didn't revive a mouldering corpse and unleash it to attack a bunch of hapless tourist on a caves and coves tour.

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Oh my God, this made me laugh more than it should have🤣🤣

I think it was a bit unusual OP, but ultimately harmless. And I agree with pp’s that YABU for saying she was performance crying. You don’t know her or how she usually cries. Such an unpleasant little remark.

TheAppledoesnt · 27/04/2025 22:02

You sound quite mean. Performance crying?

a quarter of a jar of ashes isn’t going to even be noticed.

You think you’re really quite clever and funny writing this don’t you

Toooldtopretend · 27/04/2025 22:00

Presumably you were only witness to this because you stayed on the boat. Maybe there will be another post later from a poor lady trying to scatter ashes discretely but there was a woman with a camera near by staring throughout and not giving her any privacy.

Wiltingasparagusfern · 27/04/2025 21:58

Not a pearl clutcher. But someone lacking in empathy, perhaps.

PruthePrune · 27/04/2025 21:58

A turd would have been worse

Northerngirl821 · 27/04/2025 21:57

It’s a bit of an odd place to do it but it’s not harming anyone. I’d worry far more about the dumping of raw sewage and toxic waste in our seas than some harmless carbon dust.

JuvenileBigfoot · 27/04/2025 21:55

HopscotchBanana · 27/04/2025 21:48

I think that's a bit odd.

If I was scattering ashes I wouldn't go on a little tourist boat with strangers. You weren't that far out to sea. It would have been little trouble to hire a little boat for half an hour. Or even stand in the surf, privately at sunset.

It should be a personal thing.

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Everyone is different though. Martin might have requested it. Maybe he loved going there when it was all full of happy people.

I was watching a documentary about a warship and the captain had some of his brothers ashes with him that the brothers wife had given him with instructions to drop a small amount in every new place he can. The brother was an adventurer and keen traveller apparently. I thought that was lovely.

Also, cremated remains are just non organic bone tissue ground up. You can’t even obtain DNA from it. There are much MUCH grosser things in the sea.

Robinsinthegarden · 27/04/2025 21:54

Clutching my pearls for you OP

5128gap · 27/04/2025 21:53

Screamingabdabz · 27/04/2025 21:36

Who gives a shit about the actual alive people enjoying the sea and being assailed by human remains then eh? 🙄

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Oh come now. Assailed? The guy poured some fine dust into the sea, he didn't revive a mouldering corpse and unleash it to attack a bunch of hapless tourist on a caves and coves tour.

Didimum · 27/04/2025 21:50

Pawse · 27/04/2025 21:47

I agree, after over 21 years of mumnset I am VERY mumnset but I have to say your post is very pot calling the kettle black!

Coming onto a thread a slagging off the OP without even bothering to answer the original question is so very nouveau mumsnet of you.

And I was there and can assure you it was performative.

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I think it's clear my post did answer it, yes – YABU.

HopscotchBanana · 27/04/2025 21:48

Pawse · 27/04/2025 21:18

No she was on the boat trip too. Well it's obviously just me then! I'll unclutch my pearls and have a word with myself.

I'll also tell me kids when they do scatter my ashes to do it privately!

I think that's a bit odd.

If I was scattering ashes I wouldn't go on a little tourist boat with strangers. You weren't that far out to sea. It would have been little trouble to hire a little boat for half an hour. Or even stand in the surf, privately at sunset.

It should be a personal thing.

Original poster
Pawse · 27/04/2025 21:47

Didimum · 27/04/2025 21:41

So someone has lost a loved one and has come to scatter ashes and they are 'performance crying'. How very Mumsnet of you.

I agree, after over 21 years of mumnset I am VERY mumnset but I have to say your post is very pot calling the kettle black!

Coming onto a thread a slagging off the OP without even bothering to answer the original question is so very nouveau mumsnet of you.

And I was there and can assure you it was performative.

OP posts:
Zone2NorthLondon · 27/04/2025 21:44

Agree,it’s somewhat inappropriate to tip Martin off a boat whilst others are swimming in proximity. It lacks a certain gravitas

Westnortheast · 27/04/2025 21:44

It is illegal in some countries to scatter ashes. ?turkey

Didimum · 27/04/2025 21:41

So someone has lost a loved one and has come to scatter ashes and they are 'performance crying'. How very Mumsnet of you.

SpringSunshineanddaffodils · 27/04/2025 21:41

DisplayPurposesOnly · 27/04/2025 21:10

I agree, they should have done it away from other people. (If only for their own sense of occasion!)

But quarter of a jam jar of ashes is going to blend in pretty quickly. I wonder where the rest of Martin is?

It's common to split ashes between family members. I have a bit of my dad in my cabinet. The rest of him is split between step-mum and my sisters. There a miniature urn containing FIL in the cabinet too, DH's siblings and step-MIL have their own small urns and the rest of him is buried.
Martin could have been shared put to be scattered or kept elsewhere.

But back to the OP; it wasn't right at all for that lady to do that. It should have been done privately and with dignity.

TimeForABreak4 · 27/04/2025 21:40

For some reason I can't cope with Ashes. When my DH picked my mums up I had to call my sister to ask if she could have them within 10 mins of him getting home with them. The thought of my mum now being those ground up ashes in a box, just really unsettled me. So no, I wouldn't have wanted to have been swimming with Martyn being scattered right next to me and potentially in my hair etc.