AN EXHIBITION in Exeter, recently featured a range of less traditional ways of giving yourself the ultimate send off, ranging from using motorbikes as hearses to shooting ashes into the sky.
Among the exhibitors in the Return to Sender section was the Reverend Paul Sinclair, founder of Motorcycle Funerals, which use sidecars in place of traditional hearses.
Rev Sinclair, a minister from Derbyshire, believes that the approach to funerals by the Christian Churches is too narrow-minded.
"As well as having religion, most people have other lifestyles," he said.
Churches needed to realise that funerals should not be held on the basis of faith alone, but should also be relevant to a person's lifestyle.
"Take a man who rode motorbikes in the war, then came home and rode into retirement. If you put him in a car, his lifestyle has been completely ignored," said Sinclair.
"No-one submits a Catholic to a Muslim service or places a Liverpool football fan in an Arsenal shirt when they die - so why should people who love bikes be last seen in an automobile?"
He's got a point.
