Funeral today

My father-in-law's funeral takes place this afternoon at 3.15pm.

My wife and I will be accompanying the coffin to the crematorium as part of a small funeral cortège. As the cortège reaches the gates we will be met by a piper who will walk in front of the hearse as it drives from the gates to the chapel. During this procession he will play a lament, and this will continue until the coffin has been carried into the chapel and the mourners are seated.

The service will be a simple one. After the officiating clergyman has begun the service with the Welcome and Gathering prayer, he will read Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s ‘Crossing the bar’. He will then address the mourners and I will deliver the Eulogy on behalf of my wife and I. The mourners will then take part in prayers and sing ‘Jerusalem’. Because my father-in-law was a former solder, his coffin will be draped with the Union Flag and the Last Post will be played just before the Committal. This will be followed by the Reveille, and we will process out of the chapel to the sound of the piper playing ‘Flower of Scotland’.

I wrote the Eulogy yesterday morning, and it was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write. In fact I found it more difficult to write than the Eulogy I wrote for my own mother’s funeral. To try to encapsulate the story of a man’s life in an oration that lasts no more than five minutes is not an easy one, and when that man lived for so long – and my father-in-law lived for ninety six years – the task is extremely difficult. I hope that I managed to do him justice. My wife thinks so, and that it probably the most important thing.