The practice of putting objects in coffins along with the dead, to comfort or help them in the life to come, was until recently described by students of culture as an interesting practice now abandoned in the modern West; but gifts for the dead are making a comeback, with photographs, jewellery, teddy bears and the like being placed in coffins.20 Nigel Barley relates stories, told by a crematorium official, of widows placing in the coffin a packet of digestive biscuits, or the deceased’s spare glasses and false teeth. On one occasion a widow put into her husband’s coffin two cans of the spray
...more
