Grandpa's funeral

[James Smith]

We held a memorial service for my Grandpa on Monday, finally. He died in June whle on holiday (a few months shy of his 80th birthday), and we've only now gotten a bit of paper from the coroner (came today) that says yes, he is dead and yes, we can now go ahead and cremate him in accordance with his wishes.

Cremation is on Saturday. We've been going through a couple of CDs of brass band music for some tunes to play at the short service. Our family is pretty big on brass band stuff - we used to go to the Whit Friday brass band contest at Mossley, Grandpa didn't miss many over the years and when he did he always had a good excuse (like taking Gran on holiday for her birthday). We've gone with brass renditions of Nimrod to open with, Finlandia Op. 26 and then March: The Cavalier to end on.

I can't think of many people who would have that sort of thing played at their funeral, but it really is appropriate for Grandpa

[Atrahasis]

Here's hoping we all become beloved grandpas someday.

[James Smith]

Well, we had the final service for him yesterday. The music was definitely good - when The Cavalier started up you could feel the Mossley vibe, and I could just hear Grandpa in my mind identifying Finlandia from it's opening note as he always did.

Hopefully the coroners don't drag out the final process of saying why he died too much longer, as Gran would really like to know and I don't think she'll rest easily until that report comes out.

[CaptainPierce]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I lost one of my grandfathers back in 1981, and I still miss him some days.

[James Smith]

captainpierce said:

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Cheers Cap'n.

captainpierce said:

I lost one of my grandfathers back in 1981, and I still miss him some days.

It's the daftest things that I'm already missing badly.

As an example - he had terrible trouble remembering what gender any of the family pets were, and never really remembered their names so he had a default - male, and called Herbert. Any pet, any animal he came across, he always called it Herbert. The number of cats that he confused over the years....

Heading back up north with my parents to see Gran at the weekend. Uncle Dave - her eldest son - went back home (he lives in Germany with his wife as she works over there) on Wednesday, so the end of this week is the first time she's been alone in the house since Grandpa passed away.

[Atrahasis]

jrs said:

captainpierce said:

Sorry to hear of your loss.

As an example - he had terrible trouble remembering what gender any of the family pets were, and never really remembered their names so he had a default - male, and called Herbert. Any pet, any animal he came across, he always called it Herbert. The number of cats that he confused over the years....

Hey, he was a TOS fan! I call people Herbert sometimes too, though that's on purpose.