Warming to Wicker Coffins
SHEFFIELD, England (Reuters) - Demand for hand-woven wicker coffins has tripled since British pop star Adam Faith was buried in one in March, a funeral director said Tuesday.
Requests for the caskets soared after newspapers published photographs of Faith's wicker coffin covered in flowers, said John Mallatratt of Peace Funerals in Sheffield, northern England, where wickerwork coffins cost $670, about twice the price of the solid pine option.
"Every time there's a funeral with a wicker coffin more people see them and fall in love with them," Mallatratt said at his funeral parlor, which also offers woodland burials and ceremonies on vintage steam trains.
The wicker coffins take two days of skilled work to craft, and with only 40 weavers left in Britain, supply is limited.
But demand is growing -- a sign of Britons' changing attitude to death.
"It's changing, but slowly. There's still the notion of 'we ought to do the proper thing' and 'what will the neighbors think?'," said Mallatratt, whose parlor now supplies the funeral trade with the coffins.
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I can hear the pine casket company's advert rebuttal. "Be sure with pine. Remember, there's no rest for the wickered."
And the angel said to the new arrival: "Have you read Marx?" Rueful response, "Must be the coffin."
"The bereaved walked slowly behind the appalled bearers."
And the new arrival explained to those who had gone before. "It all started with my wife's being hard of hearing. I can assure you I did not say I wanted to be buried in a basket."
