I’ve lived in this house almost a decade, and I’ve worked from home more than half that time. I know the sounds of the road and the local nature. Once I heard an owl! A real rarity here. Twice a steam-train passing the otherwise out-of-use five-arches bridge. A year or so ago I heard a sound from the street that I had never heard here before, though I had dreamed and hoped. Did my ears decieve me, or was that clipping? Was this an auditory hallucination, or was somebody clopping out there? Listener, horses! Many fine horses! White and plumed and gat up in funereal finery! Clip clop clip clop! They just seemed to keep coming. And then a handsome white cart with glass sides. A coffin was parading by, followed by car after car after honking car. Had my housemate Ava not seen it at the same time, I could have believed it was a waking dream. It made our day, and then it lapsed into memory.

This week we heard about a fantastically big new headstone in the nearby cemetary. This is the grave of Big Willy Collins, the King of Sheffield, is he was known. It is so conspicuous a grave, it’s made the national news. It’s made from 36 tons of Italian marble, with gold lettering honouring our fallen king. Its construction cost three times as much as the house I live in, and it’s quite big, as well. It’s notable for incorporating a solar-powered juke-box, to play a selection of Big Willy’s favourite songs, and CCTV to ensure no-one messes with the juke-box.

The funeral procession we had seen was for Big Willy. Of course it was! In his life, Willy was a bare-knuckle fighter, an Irish traveller, a beloved patriarch, a character and king. Depending on reports, between 400 and 600 people attended the funeral.

We went to the cemetary expecting something gaudy and overwhelming. It was incredible, it was wonderful to see. But it wasn’t unattractive. If the music hadn’t been playing, and a sizable family hadn’t been partying down next to it, it wouldn’t have seemed out of place. Yes it’s very big and white and gold, but it wasn’t excessively any of those things. It wasn’t vulgar - or, not more than the Pyramids or the Taj Mahal. For a king, I could accept this. I never knew he existed until he was gone, but his lavish funeral and burial gave a lot to remember and wonder at, in what were otherwise a pair of pretty boring years. So I appreciate Big Willy, if only from beyond the grave.

When we saw the horses and the coffin way back when, my housemate Ava said she’d appreciate a funeral like that, and asked me ‘what do you want your funeral to be like?’. I answered immediately, in two words: ‘chaotic and frustrating’.

In actuality, I won’t be present at my funeral. You might well be, and you might be sad or bored or uncomfortable or annoyed. I’m not currently dying to the best of my knowledge, but here are some words to think on at my funeral: I’m very sorry I’m dead. It wasn’t on purpose, and I didn’t mean to leave y’all in the lurch. Perhaps at this funeral you have suddenly been struck by the thought that there is a dead body in the casket in the room with you. That’s very spooky, but it isn’t me. It’s just my peeling meat tent, from which I have escaped. I’m like the anchoress of shere or any given banana. I got out! Weep if you like, but Christ will return and so shall I! You may be sad I’m not there to help or encourage or bother you, but don’t be sad for me. Better to be cognizant of your own mortality. It definitely will. Don’t deny it, don’t panic, don’t act surprised. One day it will be your funeral and you won’t be at it, unless you somehow fake your own death. Fake it til you make it, as they say. Good luck with that. Funerals are a side-show, a distraction. Don’t bury me in a suit, and I hope to see you on the other side