CREMATION

I went to the funeral this afternoon of a local man. For many years he had been the treasurer of the local cinema, which is how I knew him.

He was cremated, which is still a bit unusual in Denmark, at least out in the countryside where I live. And rather different from how it proceeds in the U.K. My stepfather and my brother were both cremated, and the service was the same. We assembled at the crematorium, the service was held in the chapel, and then the coffin disappeared behind a closed screen into the incinerator round the back.

Here, the service was in the local church. That included the traditional "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" speech, which would normally take place at the graveside, the priest merely putting a small amount of earth on top of the coffin by the altar. Afterwards, the coffin was taken to the hearse at the church gate, while the mourners followed. The car then drove off to the incinerator in Odense, some 30km away. Nobody, not even the immediate family, went with it.

On the way home, I puzzled over why the ritual should be different. Perhaps it is because the Danish Lutheran church is a state church, in which most (in olden times, all) people are automatically registered, and which is still financed by an extra levy on the state income tax. Two hundred years ago, everybody would have been buried in the local churchyard after a service conducted by the priest. Cremation may now be allowed, but old habits die hard.

Walter Blotscher