We wanted to incorporate the ashes in a new garden wall so OH would always remain where he loved living, they would have been mixed in with the concrete mix so he would have been pleased as he was always covered in the stuff when working outside but no, the ruling of 2008 about ashes being kept at home was presented to us by the maire and he had to be put in the columbarium. It wasn’t fair because we heard of other folks getting their loved one’s ashes after the crem but when I moved, we got the funeral people to release them to me and he sits here in the front bedroom on a little shelf dedicated to him with photos and momentoes from the kids and when the time comes, we shall move in together once again. The reason the law gave us was to do with personal trauma should you scatter or inter ashes on your property and then have to move knowing you could not return - load of old cobras in my personal opinion as we all know ashes are mostly the coffin wood and some charred bones, definately not the person we lost.
I had the experience of being part of a scattering of my mother-in-law’s ashes in Northumberland a few years ago. It was a memorable experience, not least because the ashes were so fine that they were not so much scattered as consigned to the atmosphere, disappearing like little puffs of smoke into the air. It was impossible to know where they actually landed, or whether they even landed at all.
My uncle wanted his ashes put in the sea, there’s a designated area off the coast near La Grande Motte for human ash dispersal. We all went after the crematorium, it took a while because the ashes have to cool down. You go out by boat, you have to hire one obviously, to the designated place et voilà. The ashes themselves looked more like granulated sugar than anything else. My father’s in a box on top of a dresser in my kitchen.
Is it illegal elsewhere then?
Does anyone else remember the 1970s comedy series “I Didn’t Know You Cared”, written by Peter Tinniswood, which featured a character called Uncle Staveley (remembered for his catchphrase, “I heard that! Pardon?”) who always appears with the ashes of Corporal Parkinson—one of his comrades from World War I —in a box around his neck.
When I was a student I had a good friend who was from Sheffield and who retains the nickname “Uncle Staveley” to this day. 
It became a catchword for my personal circle too. What a lineup of stars, how many can I remember?
John Comer, Liz Smith, Robin Bailey. Steven (? Irish actor?) and Anita (?)
Anyone fill the gaps?
Steven Rea, Anita Carey.
Thank you Mr. Memory, and now can you turn your attention to the lost spiv please?
I think you are allowed to put ashes into the sea only in specific places, but I don’t know what the rules are for land or air. Actually I have just looked and it is a bit vague, it seems to be up to individual communes. There are lots of places you can’t disperse ashes though. Supposedly you notify the deceased’s commune of birth which won’t have happened seeing my uncle was born in Saigon. Nantes dealt with it I suppose.
Specific bits of sea near land, or 3km out. And you can disperse “in nature” whatever that means
300m, I saw.
Just not rivers or a slew of other places.
Oh yes you’re right, for ashes. If anyone want to throw the whole urn in then it’s 3 nautical miles and urn must be biodegradable.
I think I’ll leave mum on the bookcase. She aleays got seasick.