Vicar Bans Man’s Last Wish

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 331, 12 January 1937, Page 3

Vicar Bans Man’s Last Wish

REFUSES TO COMPLETE SERVICE AS ASHES WERE TO BE CAST ON RACECOURSE . Refusal to complete a funeral service was made by a parson because the dead man’s ashes were to be scattered over a racecourse. The funeral was that, of Mr J. W. Wild, licensee of the Star Inn, Rainford (Lanes).. When the vicar, Rev. A. E. Bass, reached the crematorium at Anfield he learned of the dead man’s wish, that his ashes should be scattered on Haylock racecourse. The widow, it was stated, intended to ?arry this out and the vicar declined to officiate at the crematorium ceremony. Interviewed later the vicar said it peemed unfitting to cast the ashes over a racecourse. “I would not have minded/’ he added, “if they were to have been deposited in a garden of remembrance or in a churchyard. ” The scattering of the ashes on the racecourse was not carried out, as the funeral party had not made previous arrangements and they could not get in touch with the officials of the racecourse. When the vicar of Rainford decided that he could take no further steps in the proceedings Rev. Mr Edwards agreed to officiate. Mrs A. Wild, the widow, said: “1 shall keep the ashes in the house until X have made up my mind what to do with them. “I am inclined io carry out my husbands’s wishes, but I shall not tell anyone what I have done. It is no one’s business but my own.” Mr Wild, who was 61, was a native of Earlestown.