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Updated Monday, January 30, 2012 0:08 am TWN, By Judith Evans, AFP



	A visitor looks at a dumpster-shaped coffin made from plywood and commissioned by John Gratton-Fisher, a building contractor, who plans to be burried in the “skip” to celebrate his livelihood, during the “Death - Festival for the Living” exhibit at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Saturday, Jan. 28. (AFP) Enlarge Photo

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Crazy Coffins breaks British taboo about death

LONDON--British pensioner Malcolm Brocklehurst loves Blackpool Football Club and his former profession of aircraft engineer, and he has no plans to abandon them in death.

So his final home will be a coffin shaped like a plane, painted bright orange and emblazoned with the Blackpool logo.

“I want a fun funeral. I don't want people crying and that,” the 77-year-old told AFP as he leaned happily on his casket, on show at London's Royal Festival Hall as part of an event titled “Death: A Festival for the Living”.

The wings of his plywood coffin are removable, Brocklehurst points out, for easier access to his local crematorium, where he has asked that he be sent to the incinerator with the World War II cry: “Chocks away!”

It is the work of Crazy Coffins — an offshoot of a Nottingham-based traditional coffin and urn maker which took on a new identity in the 1990s when people began asking to customize their final resting places.

A commission for a pearlescent coffin for the late British TV presenter Paula Yates, who died in 2000, helped make the firm famous, as did several appearances in the press.

“I don't think there is anything we can't make,” said David Crampton, the firm's managing director.

“The customers are the designers: we just make what they ask. We say to people, 'There's a choice in that final decision.'”

Crampton's firm has made coffins and urns in the shapes of Viking boats, cars — including a Rolls Royce Phantom with working wheels — skateboards, a cork and a kite.

Many of their creations are now six feet under, but others have been commissioned by people who are still alive and well but planning their own farewells in advance.

Several of these are on show at the event, including a shining casket shaped like a ballet shoe which belongs to Pat Cox, 70, a former nurse and amateur dancer.

“My grandfather was a pianist (who) had regular work at a ballet school, and one of my earliest memories is of sitting cross-legged by the piano watching little feet in pink ballet shoes,” Cox said.

Cox first contacted Crazy Coffins with a view to planning an eco-friendly funeral, and ended up designing her ballet-pump casket, which the firm made from taffeta on a pine frame.

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