Crematorium Technician here

Twitterqueen. It’s interesting how different cultures deal with death. Personally I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with very simple funerals with no rituals or tradition. I wouldn’t like a funeral with lots of traditions.

It’s good to learn that cremations can be tailored to suit a wide variety of needs.

A fascinating thread - thank you Kermit for the job that you do.

She had a terminal illness and wanted to see what would happen to her. I showed her round then cremated her about 2 months later...I felt a special bond with her

Thank you @ILoveKermit for this enlightening discussion.

I've hated crematoriums since I was a young girl after attending my grandmothers' cremation. I don't know if this is just me remembering something wrong but all I can think about is that when the curtains went round the coffin, you could hear the whir of tracks taking it back. (This would have been in the 80s).

To hear you speak of the deceased with so much respect is truly comforting.

I've spent the day reading this thread when I had a minute. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer everyone's questions and put so many people a mind's at ease, all my questions have been asked and answered already.

The fact that you say goodbye and wish everyone well really touched me, thank you again.

I think this thread should be in classics, it would help a lot of people over the years

Thank you for this Kermit.

I agree Twitterqueen. I felt very uncomfortable at the start of the thread. But as I read on, I saw my fears verbalised by others and I began to feel in a much better place.

Thank you OP.

I've been talking to a friend about this thread who isn't on here. She has an older relative who is seriously obese - between 30 and 40 stones in weight. What is the maximum sized person that can fit in a cremator? At what size would a crematorium say that they cannot carry out a cremation because the deceased and coffin is too large?

Would that ever happen?

One of my closest friends is a British born Indian. Her mother (Indian born & 90+) recently died and friend was not familiar with the burial rituals. She got huge comfort from all the different rituals - a photo in the home with a candle and flowers, people pinning things to the exterior of the coffin, everyone talking about everything, the whole extended family mourning in India with a communal commemoration...

We don't do death (or old age) at all well in the UK. And here's another vote @MNHQ for classics please! We're all so scared of and ignorant about death and I believe it would be so much less stressful for all concerned if we could talk about it more.

If you delivered your own loved one to a crematorium, I presume you'd need some sort of 'licence' to carry a corpse? I know when a friend died, his body was taken from London to Lancashire and I seem to remember they had to get permission from each county he travelled through. I may be remembering this completely wrong though.

Please don't think this is too morbid...

But do you ever get coffins that well.....don't look like a traditionally shaped coffin.

I've always said to my family that they should pack me into the biggest cardboard box they can find. There is just something about a wooden coffin that makes me feel uneasy.

Thankyou so much for this thread, my man was cremated 4 weeks ago and I now have some understanding of the process and gives me comfort that she was looked after

What a fascinating thread. Thank you.

Kermit thanks so much for this thread

I do like the idea of a decorated cardboard coffin, a nice sturdy one, though I guess you could do the same with unvarnished pine.

I helped to decorate a relative's cardboard coffin with felt tips, and that was cremated.

Damson, I don’t know anything about types of paint, but a friend of mine painted her dad’s cardboard coffin, at his request, so I assume some types of decoration on a cardboard coffin would be permitted.

Kermit, thank you for this fascinating and reassuring thread. Your ‘Cheerio’ gave me a lump in my throat, as my dad always said it, and I hope that someone said it to him before he went in the cremator.

I was amazed at how many ashes there were from my mum’s body. She was a very petite woman all her life, and very small by the end as she had stomach cancer. I think she was 5 stone or so. Couldn’t believe there was so much ash from someone so small 😕

EdWinchester You can rent coffins in the US. But in Britain funeral costs are very uncompetitive.

Why do frail old people take longer to cremate? My dad was really thin when he died and I always imagined he'd be in and out!

This definitely needs to go to Classics so it doesn't get lost. I think it would be a lot of help for grieving families to read in the future.

Another one who would like to thank you Kermit both for this thread and also for looking after us at the end with such compassion.
We cremated my Nan last week and I will admit we had discussed some of these things as a family; not knowing exactly what happens.
This has been a very interesting and reassuring read.

Can coffins be painted? As in decorated? Would it be an issue with chemicals released, depending on the type of paint used?

This is a really fascinating thread! I have nothing to ask, any questions I may have thought of have already been answered. It seems like a really morbid thing to say but I love threads like this, about death and what happens after you die.

This thread is fascinating, thank you OP.

My baby girl was cremated and, while our area was part of the inquiry and legislation around the handling (and mishandling) of babies’ ashes I am comforted to know that she was treated with the utmost dignity and if she was cremated at the same time as other babies, they wouldn’t be alone and the ashes were all scattered at the same place within the crematorium grounds.

Really interesting thread - thanks.

I think it's a shame that coffins can't be hired for a cremation, with some sort of robust liner inside to be cremated. Apart from the huge cost of them, almost all 'wooden' cofffins are merely thin veneers on chipboard. The chipboard is treated with formaldehyde which is then released into the atmosphere when burnt.

There should be an ethical alternative.