I never expected that the last time I would be in the company of my friend Brian he would be in a wicker basket, but he was.

No, not with the shopping, he was by himself after succumbing to a very virulent cancer, but, you see, he didn’t want a funeral with any religion or tradition so he plumped for a wicker coffin.

It was the very first “green” funeral I had been too and I rather liked it. A wry smile came over everyone’s face when the family took their seats for Brian, who had been a radio announcer, boomed down from the speakers: “It’s Brian Cooper.”

This was followed by a selection of his music and quips. I thought it was rather novel to be the host at your own funeral, and pick your own music!

Green funerals, often without religious overtones, are becoming increasingly popular. Humanist or civil celebrants make the event a celebration of the person’s life. They may contain humour, reflection, popular music, in fact just about anything which does not contravene good manners and respect.

Woodland and green field site burials in ecologically friendly wicker or bamboo coffins turned heads a few years ago but they are now increasingly popular. I had to smile at the funeral director who recalled leading a torch lit procession through the woods with a 40-piece Samba band. Now that’s style.

If you’re really in economy mode you can have a white cardboard coffin for around £250 and very tasteful they look too. A top of the range willow one will set you back £800, but most ecologically friendly caskets are considerably cheaper than wooden ones.

Woodland memorial burial sites are popular and one of the most beautiful I have seen is near my home town of Skipton, North Yorkshire. Tarn Moor Memorial Woodland opened in 2002. The setting is breathtaking and as the proprietors says: “If it’s legal, dignified and respectful, anything goes.”

The site is a conservation area and is being ecologically planned so that it turns naturally from a meadow to a full woodland over the next 50 years.

There, and at many other venues, a funeral can be as simple or as elaborate as people wish. It is increasingly popular to plan your own funeral in advance and pay for it, usually by means of a funeral plan.

I smiled at one site which caters not only for human funerals and remains but pets too. Their scale of charges ranged from £65 for a small animal through to £750 for a donkey! It didn’t say whether the hearse was included.

Irreverent? No it isn’t. When we have all finished life’s journey I trust there has been a little humour along the way, so why not at the end of the road?

I haven’t planned my funeral yet, others have, but I’ve thought about it. My wife refused to let me be buried at sea because she objected to the number of guests I’d invited to dance on my grave.

So perhaps it will be a quiet corner of a Yorkshire woodland, and, for reasons best known to me, my wife, and my late friend Brian, this will be the closing number:

“For all you mean to me my thanks to you.
For every memory my thanks to you
My thanks for everything we’d love to share,
For all the joy you bring just being there.
These foolish words of mine
Could never say,
How slow the hands of time
When you’re away.
As years go rolling by my whole life through,
I give my love and all my thanks to you.”

…………………but not too near the donkeys!

Editor, Third Age.