Respect

Epsom saw a large traveller funeral today and as luck would have it the cortège was making its way over West Hill into Epsom town centre just as I got there.

Pride of place was given to a glass sided hearse drawn by a team of four handsome greys, with white plumes. A passer by counted between 15 and 20 Mercedes limousines, big black jobs, and I counted 10 or more wreath & flower filled pick-ups and small lorries, including a floral horse. Plus a trotting buggy and a small four wheeled cart drawn by a small but shaggy horse. These last, again, being full of wreaths & flowers.

All very impressive although most of the civilians standing around wondered where the money to pay for it all came from.

With some of the pick-ups advertising same, I wondered whether drive & garden work in the area was at a standstill for the day. I also wondered at the oddness of choosing to spend this huge amount of money on a funeral while at the same time preferring to live in a caravan on some more or less dodgy site on the wrong side of the tracks, rather than in the comfort of a house.

I thought it would perhaps not be showing respect to take a picture. Plus the telephone, while taking excellent pictures, takes a while to load the camera up, so a possibly discrete moment passed me by.