Am I allowed to enjoy funerals?
Before I had ever been to a funeral, I imagined what it would be like: a grim, depressing affair. The sky would be leaden and there would be rain. There would be deeply sorrowful music – Adagio in G minor by Albinoni, a verbose elegy, stiff hymns, muffled sobbing, regulatory prayers and afterwards egg sandwiches, polite chatter and weak cups of tea. But this version of a funeral has changed in recent years and has become more relaxed and celebratory, perhaps in line with declining church attendance. A recent Co-op Funeralcare study found that 68 per cent of people agreed that funerals should be more of a celebration of life, up from 58 per cent in 2019.
