I was born in Cardiff, South Wales, but now live with my wife in Edinburgh, 400 plus miles away from the majority of my nearest relations who continue to live in and around Cardiff. At the time of the funeral of the title, both my parents were already dead but I still had a sister living just outside Cardiff. But it was a cousin who rang me up to let me know that one of my father’s sisters had died and that the funeral was to be held in three days time. I was given the address of the church where the funeral service was to be held as well as details of the crematorium. The biggest problem was that the church service was scheduled to start at 9.45 in the morning. I said I’d do my best to get there but couldn’t make any promises.

Just by chance my wife, Pat, and I had already booked train tickets down to London in two day’s time and, as we keep another car in our Croydon home, if we made an early morning start on the day of the funeral we could just about get there in time. We keep many clothes in our Croydon home so we didn’t have to pack too much extra. The journey down to London was uneventful and we arrived in Croydon in the late afternoon.

A hive of activity then followed as the car, which had been sitting in the drive under a tree used by pigeons as a nightly roost, now needed a thorough clean as well as having its battery charged. Tyres were checked and everything seemed to working fine. We then had to do some shopping to bring in perishable items such as milk, bread, eggs, and so on. Next, we tried out our funeral clothes. Pat is more up-to-date with her clothing so her’s fitted fine and she looked very nice. Unfortunately, I hadn’t worn my suit for at least ten years and although it was clean and in good condition it was now a bit tight. It seems that my feet had also grown because my black shoes were crippling me. Having no alternative, I decided I would just have to suffer. We eventually had a late dinner before going to bed. We needed to make a very early start the next day.

The bedside alarm rang at 5 a.m. the next morning and after a hasty breakfast we got ourselves ready. When we went out to the car we were greeted by fog and a large new bird dropping down one side of the car. I didn’t have time to clean it off. This wasn’t a good start. I typed the address of the church in Cardiff into my TomTom GPS system which told us we had 165 miles to go to Cardiff. As the Service was due to start at 9.45 am and the cremation was scheduled for 11 am, we didn’t have any time to lose. It was going to be tight.
After six miles we reached the M23 leading to the M25. Unfortunately, the inbuilt maps in my TomTom were out-of-date so it didn’t recognize the new M23 link even though it had been there for over five years. We ploughed on but in the fog we missed the turn north onto the M25 and, instead, found ourselves on the southbound side of the M25. We then had to travel in the opposite direction for three miles before we could turn. Things were going from bad to worse.

The motorway, as always, was very busy but we eventually reached the turn-off to the M4, which would take us all the way to Cardiff. We started to pick up time and all was going well until we reached Junction 10, near Wokingham. That was when I noticed a warning light that had just come on advising me that something was wrong with the car’s engine or the engine management system. I decided to push on to the next service station before checking it out. Notwithstanding that light, the car seemed fine.

Once in the service area I did a quick check to make sure nothing obvious was wrong and finding nothing, I rang Green Flag, our roadside breakdown recovery company. To be fair, they arrived very quickly – I thought 20 minutes was a pretty good response time – but after doing various checks, the mechanic could find no problems, even though the light stubbornly stayed on. Hearing that we were on our way to a funeral, he felt confident we could continue to our destination but advised me to report the problem to my garage repair shop when I was home once again. He then followed us for the next ten miles to make sure we were all right before he returned home. We had now lost a valuable hour and it was now touch and go whether we would get to the service in time.

I felt constrained from travelling too fast and kept to the speed limit whenever we had a chance to do so and eventually we arrived at the Severn Bridge. It was now clear that we had no chance of getting to the church service. What was now of concern was whether we could get to the crematorium in time. On the Welsh side of the bridge, we hit traffic.

In one of the many traffic stops, I had time to reprogramme my TomTom with the address of the crematorium but all the while we were bleeding time. At a few minutes to 11 am we eventually arrived reached the road leading to the crematorium but there was my aunt’s long funeral cortege immediately in front of us. Also, by this time, I was bursting to go to the toilet. After finding somewhere to park, we hurried up to the chapel just as the coffin was about to be taken in. While I rushed into the toilet, Pat explained to the funeral directors that we were part of the family and had just come down from Scotland. Very decently they waited for me to come out of the toilet and for Pat and I to get seated before they brought the coffin in.

After a short address and a hymn the service was over. We had not even had time to gather our breath before we were filing out of the chapel. We obviously looked lost and a bit out of place once we were outside and someone came across to speak to us. I didn’t recognize him as I didn’t recognize any of the people around me but he proved to be Paul, the only son of my father’s younger brother, Harry. Harry had been my favourite uncle when I was a boy and not having children of his own for many years, he was like a second father to me and always took me to watch Cardiff playing rugby at the Cardiff Arms Stadium. I was probably about fifteen when Paul was born so it was unsurprising I didn’t recognize him. In fact, it was he who had advised me of the death of my Aunt Kitty. He told me where the wake was being held and we all met up there a short while later where Pat and I were introduced to a myriad cousins and their offspring, only one of which I actually remembered. Neither my brother nor my sister nor any of their immediate family attended that day but it was really nice meeting up with other close members of my extended family. It transpired that Paul was compiling a family tree and even though she was only related by marriage to a member of the family, Pat added a huge number of names to Paul’s already extensive tree. We never met Paul again because within a few months he, too, was dead.
For good as well as bad reasons, I will always remember my Aunt Kitty’s funeral.

B Gallivan
October 2018