Day of the funeral for Chris finds us at Sutton crem. Shortly after arriving and parking the car we noticed a route master bus pull in and on closer inspection noticed that it was the number 47 Fudge Farewell which had brought his work colleagues from their meeting point at the Anchor in Birmingham. Slowly the crowd grew, and grew, and whilst chatting to some old acquaintences it quickliy became apparant what there were more people than would fit. Note that the 47 was a reference to Chris's other passion of class 47 trains.
The timetable on the door to the crem normally has 30 minute slots for eqach service, but this time it was a double booking.
Anyway, the tiem arrived and we managed to get a seat although it was packed with many standing and severla tens of peoplke unable to get inside. The humanist tradition service meant no hymns and the like, rather 8 speeches on various aspects of Chris's short life after which we exitied to "Hops and Barley" (a version on YouTube here.)
On to the less formal part of the proceedings, and after dropping my car at homw wee headed to the Assesmbly Rooms where five spacial beers had been laid on either which Chris liked or had been specially produced. they included Fudge Finale form Church End, Finns Hall Porter from Beowulf and Staffie from Blythe plus one from Sheffield which I didn't get to sample.
we then headed to the Sir Robert Peel where the Church End as above was consumed plus numerous Beowulf Chasewater and Oakham JHB.
Not sure why, but for some reason we weren't not sober (maybe it was Chris guiding us home?)
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