I recently went to a beautifully organised funeral of an elderly acquaintance and it got me ruminating about my own. I’d like it to be natural affair, which is why I shall follow the example of popular actress, Wendy Richard, who was recently buried in a simple bamboo coffin.

Demand for natural funerals is rocketing, but permission to set up green burial grounds can be tricky. Rosie Inman-Cook from the Natural Death Centre explains that `neighbours can oppose such a move by insisting they don’t want a load of dead people in a field next to them. Of course, the advantage is they are very quiet neighbours’.

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