The Centre for Natural Burial

A simple craft to occupy homeless people at a day centre has blossomed into a booming business. EMMA HIGGINBOTHAM visits WinterWillow, purveyors of eco-friendly coffins.

PLANNING what kind of coffin you want to be buried in probably isn’t terribly high on your ‘to do’ list, but there’s no getting away from it: we’ll all need one eventually.

At least these days there’s an element of choice, and you don’t have to go to your final resting place in a sombre box that wouldn’t look out of place in a horror film. Believe it or not, coffins can be rather beautiful.

Venture into the basement at Wintercomfort, the day centre for homeless people on Victoria Avenue, and you’ll see what I mean. Down here is the WinterWillow workshop, where Roger Fowle and his colleagues are beavering away, twisting and plaiting lengths of willow into elegant eco-friendly coffins – and business is booming.

“Everybody’s becoming more aware of the damage that we’re doing to our planet,” says Tracy O’Leary, WinterWillow’s sales executive. “In traditional coffins there are lacquers, paints, glues, screws and nails, and a lot of the cheaper ones are chipboard, with nasty glues and offensive materials in there. But ours are all totally natural and degrade very quickly.”

Yet WinterWillow doesn’t just help the environment: it’s also a social enterprise that gets homeless people back into employment.

Here’s how it works: ‘service users’ at Wintercomfort come down and have a go at weaving. If they enjoy it, they can then train voluntarily and, if they show promise and commitment, after a few months they’ll be offered a paid job.

“We’re unique; we’re the only non-profit coffin makers in the UK,” says Tracy. “All the profits get ploughed straight back into the charity to help the homeless.”

It all began when Wintercomfort staff decided to introduce a simple craft to occupy people’s days.

“Willow weaving is very therapeutic,” she says. “A lot of our service users here have mental issues, and have a lot on their minds, so weaving willow takes them away from their negative thoughts and gives them something to do with their hands.”

WinterWillow’s sales executive Tracy O’Leary

They started with small pieces like garden ornaments, until someone noticed there was a market for coffins made from natural materials –  tough and sustainable, willow is ideal.

Funding was secured to convert Wintercomfort’s basement – previously a laundry and shower room – into a bespoke workshop, and since the first coffins were crafted in 2010, sales have rocketed. In fact demand is so high that WinterWillow is beginning to outgrow its space.

“It’s going from strength to strength,” says Tracy. “We started off just providing local funeral directors, but now we supply to Brighton, Cornwall, Wales, London … pretty much everywhere.”

One reason for the high demand is that people increasingly want to be buried in natural burial grounds – like the Arbory Trust’s woodland cemetery in Barton – which insists on biodegradable coffins. And although there are other ‘green’ varieties on the market, Tracy isn’t convinced they’re fit for purpose: “They’re mostly cheaper imported versions, but the funeral directors that I speak to say the quality is very, very poor. If you’ve got a body in there and the base isn’t secure, there could be incidents,” she winces. “With ours, you’re guaranteed a high standard. And they’re so beautiful,” she adds with a smile.

Heading up the weaving team is Roger Fowle, WinterWillow’s tutor, who first tried the craft in 2001. “I went through a horrible divorce, and I was very ill with depression,” he says. “Then for my birthday, my best friend bought me a two-day basket weaving course at the Botanic Garden. I fell in love with it straight away. It was so therapeutic – you could forget about things while you were making the baskets.”

A City & Guilds qualification in creative basketry followed, and Roger began making log, shopping and dog baskets from home. Then, three years ago, he spotted an advert for a tutor at Wintercomfort “and it all fell into place from there really.

“I don’t look at them as coffins; to me they’re just another basket. The fact that they’re going in the ground or being burned is a bit irksome, after spending all that time making them! But people pay the money and the charity gets the profit, so it’s a very good thing to be doing.

“It’s going very well. We’re outgrowing our location: orders are coming in thick and fast, and our stock level’s really low – I don’t know if that’s good or bad. . . .”

But for Roger, it isn’t actually making the coffins that gives him the most satisfaction, it’s working with service users who’ve fallen on hard times.

“That’s my favourite thing,” he says. “I’m not very far away from them. Nobody is. A divorce, or a couple of missed mortgage payments, and anyone can become homeless.

“But weaving gives the people something to do; it stops them sitting outside Sainsbury’s pestering shoppers. All round, it’s good; there are lots of benefits on lots of different levels by doing what we’re doing here.”

Roger Fowle works on a coffin

Not convinced? Then come and see for yourself, says Tracy. “It is such a taboo subject, death. People want to know but they don’t like to ask, so we want to give people the opportunity to come here, have a look at the coffins and have a chat. They can even get involved with building granny’s coffin if they want to.”

“That happened before Christmas,” says Rob, a former service user who’s now employed full-time by the company.

“The father died and the daughter and son came in and helped Roger build a coffin. It was quite therapeutic for them; I guess they felt part of the process.”

“It’s the final gift,” adds Tracy. “It’s a gift for the person who’s died and, as you’re not damaging the environment by burying them in something with lots of metals, glues and toxins, it’s also a gift to the planet. That’s how we look at it.”

emma.higginbotham@cambridge-news.co.uk

Each WinterWillow coffin takes three days to make.

The willow, from Somerset, is renewable and sustainable: cut once a year, it has grown back by the following year.

The linings are made of unbleached calico and potato starch, and each coffin has a cardboard pillow.

Coffins are delivered locally using WinterWillow’s special hearse, a donation from Cambridge Funeral Services, which is now painted bright green: “it causes quite a stir when I drive it around,” says Tracy.

For information and prices visit www.winterwillow.org.uk.