A natural death
Jane Wheatley, The Times
Punch the farm dog has died. It was time, really – he was staggering about, very thin and a bit bewildered in his last few days – but still it was shocking, as death always is. Ellie and I had a big cry in the kitchen afterwards. Punch had been lying out in the rain that morning so I coaxed him into the Granary, tucked him in with some old blankets and fed him porridge mixed with egg and milk, which he liked. Later David took him for a ride in the big old Nissan Patrol – Punch’s favourite activity since he became too ill to go for walks, and his last experience as it turned out.
He is buried in the top orchard beside his sister, Judy, with “R.I.P. Punch” carved into a little wooden marker. It was a miserable wet day and shovelling the sodden turf back over the grave was quite hard work. He wasn’t the brightest of dogs and he destroyed a lot of cushions in his time, but he’d had a free and vigorous life. “Dear old Punch,” said David as we stood in the rain, “the Forrest Gump of the dog world.”
Death has been rather on my mind one way and another. A lovely friend of ours is living out her last days in her house on the hill overlooking the valley. She has been using her time in fruitful ways: writing a new final chapter for her last book; making ice-cream in the night when she can’t sleep; compiling lists for her husband; discussing plans for her funeral; and keeping her friendships in good repair right to the end.
I have never witnessed such elegant preparation for departure. She wrote a farewell e-mail to many of us the other day, saying that her pain was well controlled and that she expected to die soon, peacefully at home, cared for by her husband. I am so glad about this – the thought of someone dying alone in hospital makes me sob.
She decided on a seagrass coffin some time ago, so it was too late to tell her about an appealing alternative. Anne Belgrave and her partner, Yuli, make burial shrouds out of woollen felt for their sweetly named company, Bellacouche (www.bellacouche.com; 01647 432155). Anne is an artist working mainly in felt and the idea for the shrouds came after she had attended a couple of “dark and depressing” funerals. “We thought we could be part of a more celebratory approach to burial,” she told me. She and Yuli first made a sample to send on a slightly bizarre train journey that was organised by a group of undertakers to publicise their services. The idea took off and the shrouds are now offered by green burial grounds and several funeral parlours and can be made to order in three days.
In 1666 a law was passed requiring all bodies to be buried in woollen shrouds to stimulate the failing wool trade, which can hardly have been in a worse state than now. Anne lives surrounded by hill farms and is always looking for ways to use wool. When I visited her at home in her converted chapel, she was working on some large pieces that had been commissioned for a woodland nature reserve. “Felt is very robust and degrades slowly and gracefully,” she said. We examined a sample shroud: it was made in the shape of a leaf, with an inner cocoon of soft wool that tucks in around the body. There was another layer fastened to a sturdy frame, or bier, made of coppiced hazel and hessian, six carrying handles and a top layer decorated with a choice of leaf designs: willow, birch or oak and acorn. The felt itself was made from the wool of White-faced Widecombe or Welsh Mountain sheep. The whole thing was exceptionally beautiful and I can’t think of anything more comforting in which to bury someone you loved.