I teach grandparents to weave their own coffins with their grandchildren

Telegraph

4 days ago

Every time I go into my Devon workshop to begin weaving a coffin, I think about the person it's for, especially if the family has told me about that person's life.
Yet, when I wove my first coffin, I had just suffered a devastating loss myself. My sister Anna had died in a bomb explosion in Syria, in 2018. A committed feminist and activist, she had joined the all-women YPJ brigade of the Kurdish Army, who were defending civilians against Islamic State.
I have wonderful memories of her on the phone from Syria, singing to my baby daughter, Ava, who was born while Anna was fighting. But there was also the knowledge that because of what had happened, there were no remains or even possessions of Anna's that could be repatriated. There was no physical representation of her to come home.
Learning how to weave
I'd learned to weave in willow when a family friend gifted me a course in 2012, after my mother died from cancer. I was 23 at the time and although our family was very well supported, I was so immersed in my grief, I forgot about the course and only attended the last three days.
When I did arrive, I found there was something meditative and healing in the process of willow weaving. It's an amazing combination of precise techniques, intuitive skills and repetitive rhythm and I continued, combining basketry with other jobs.
I realised that to make willow weaving work, I could either produce lots of small items for sale, teach the craft – or I could produce something bigger that people would pay more money for.
Anna had always had a 'grab life with both hands' attitude and that's what initially propelled me into starting my business, Woven Farewell. As a new mother – Ava was only eight weeks old when Anna died – I knew I needed to put my finances on a firmer footing and in that mumpreneur stage that women sometimes have, I decided to reinvent myself as a coffin-maker.
A personal touch
Sometimes I think the universe ushers you towards something unconsciously and the idea of willow coffins resonated; I loved the process of weaving and the sustainability of the product – willow rods come from living trees. I also liked the way that having something personally made for their loved one like this can help a family to process grief.
I studied with Jake Whitcroft at Sussex Willow Coffins and, as I started to weave my first coffin, in December 2018, I had baby Ava in a sling on my back. I eventually combined my first four years in business with the early years of motherhood – later, being pregnant with our second baby, Idris, and looking after Ava. When she was very little I'd pop her in one of my completed willow coffins to play with her toys while I worked.
I feel there is an amazing poetry in what I do, which encompasses the joy of life, the sadness that accompanies death, the way we grieve and heal and willow trees themselves are part of this process. In a practice that goes back thousands of years to the Neolithic period in 10,000 BC, the rods I use are coppiced in Somerset in winter, when the sap is in the root of the tree but, within a year, the tree has regenerated and comes back stronger than ever.
Along with my colleague, Abi Griffin, who works in the East Midlands, I make two types of sustainable willow coffin. Buff is made from rods which have the bark stripped off after they have been boiled – the bark tannins leach into the water and stain the willow sticks, which are naturally white inside.
Brown willow is the technical term for willow which retains its bark. These rods can take up to a week to soak – a vital part of the process which makes them more pliable – which is easier for small producers like us as we don't produce enormous volumes and don't need lots of soaking space.
On average I made a coffin every week, and each one takes around 15 to 20 hours to complete. I start with a base board at the bottom, which is usually in the traditional coffin shape, although I also offer the option for a curve at each end. Next, you fix in the uprights and then I use a combination of three well-known weaving techniques; waling, which uses three willow rods at a time, to create a band, and also English and French randing.
The uprights get folded over to make the border of the coffin, and the lid is made separately, with a plait around the edge to make the lip, which overhangs the main body of the coffin. As part of the process, I weave in carrying ropes made from European hemp, which are all part of our sustainable practice.
Willow coffins may look fragile but ours are all constructed in accordance with criteria set down by the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities. They are weight-tested up to 30 stone and lined with biodegradable corn-starch plastic, which breaks down harmlessly in the ground and doesn't give off harmful chemicals during cremation. Inside the coffin, we cover the corn-starch plastic with unbleached calico.
While I'm weaving I'll listen to anything from podcasts on politics and history, to Radio 6, but, if the family has told me about their loved one, I'll think about them, too.
It's a fine balance between reflecting on the person and not being too emotionally involved but I always feel for a family who has called me, and feel genuinely sorry, even if they tell me the person's death was not unexpected.
Perhaps it's because of this I started holding classes where people could come to my workshop, on a farm near Honiton in East Devon, and learn to weave their own coffin or urn, for themselves or a loved one.
I do one-to-ones, where I weave a coffin alongside them and I also do group sessions for families or friends. These can be amazing experiences, where people can spend a week fabricating a coffin alongside other like-minded people.
During these sessions we have fascinating conversations about the meaning of life and all sorts of people come. I've had florists who want a beautiful coffin to display sympathy flowers, people who are just planning ahead and others who feel it helps with the grieving process to be involved in making a coffin.
Some people want to learn how to make them for friends and family and others may be grandparents who come with their children and grandchildren, which can be the most life-affirming thing. The children may help with the weaving and families sometimes bring a picnic to have outside, overlooking the beautiful valley here. It's an amazing space to help children normalise death; to see that people can laugh and cry about it and for it not to be a scary or taboo subject.
Of course, I love knowing what they intend to do with these coffins, which will last for many years until the day they are needed and I get some wonderful answers. Some use them as trunks to store linens, some put them under their beds as storage and one family even put glass on top and used the coffin as a coffee table in their living room!
The business has gone from strength to strength; I won a Gold Award for the best product at the 2024's Best Businesswoman Awards and best coffin producer at the 2024 Good Funeral Awards. In the future I hope to be able to grow my own willows but, in the meantime, I want to continue to make meaning out of the funeral process because life is too fleeting not to do what we love.