Sunday 21 October 2012

First Kick at the Bucket; http://www.kickingthebucket.co.uk/

Gabrielle and I went to The Pitt Rivers Museum yesterday to explore;








The talk was dry and barely mentioned the fish burial. It failed to mention Kicking The Bucket at all except when I asked before hand. She was aware of the festival.

In the exhibition area the fantasy coffin like a bill board for a 1950's shop front on all sides.




It was different, but not in a good way. The wooden roof was made to look like corrugated iron.

How very different from the wondrous work on the fish coffin that was shown on the video which was on a loop behind this "centre piece".

If only the film maker had been the one giving the talk. We had to rely on the short film.


20th Oct - 2.30-3.30pm | We’ll bury you in a fish – gallery tour & talk.
Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road, OX1 3PP | Map No 9

Julia Nicholson on ‘Made for Trade’ exhibition highlighting the centrepiece ‘fantasy coffin’ from Ghana plus short film. See www.prm.ox.ac.uk
Suitable for adults and older children.
No need to book. (space for the first 20 people on a first come first served basis) |  | Disabled | 
Helen & Douglas House


The basic idea is that the funeral casket should show what the dead person was concerned with during life.

A shop keeper would go under surrounded with adverts for his goods.

A fisherman would be buried in a beautifully crafted painted wooden fish.

What would I be buried in? Earth, air, fire, water, a burial on a fire ship pushed out to sea?
I guess I have always been afraid to be buried in the earth.

Will I leave my family to decide?

Gill was buried in a cardboard coffin. She would have liked that. She wanted to be bones as fast as possible.
She left no instructions. Joel, her young son, would not let the cover I placed on it go down with her. He also kept her teddy. The red shoes that Dorothy might have worn went down with the coffin. The celebrant wore a red dress.

I think Angela Frawley, my older daughter's mother, was also buried in card board. I am not sure. It was covered in dark blue velvet with many silver stars upon it. Everything was dictated minutely in her will. I think I chose to read my own poem rather than the one that was chosen for me at the crematorium. I always fell out with her about her controlling nature. Perhaps I misremember. Perhaps she allowed me to choose. Tony read the Yates. It is 12 years gone by now.

I can recall us buying the most expensive wooden  coffin for his casket. He would have liked that.
But maybe not; he was always thrifty in life but for the Rolls Royce and the Champagne all round on Christmas day.

My mother had a simple wooden box. She was buried next to my father who died over twenty years before her.



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