Shocked family and friends have paid tribute to a young Witham man found hanged.As this is 2013, you’ll never guess what counts as a ‘tribute’…
Floral tributes, candles and cans of Stella have been laid in a secluded spot by the river near Pattison Close where his body was discovered.Lovely! It’s what he would have wanted. Innit?
Comments are closed on this article.I think that’s probably for the best, don’t you?
Are they full or empty and if the former, who's going to get in trouble when underage drinkers nick them?
ReplyDeleteA pub I occasionally go to has Stella come up on the till as "Act Like A Twat".
ReplyDeleteIt has a certain demographic.
AKA 'wife beater'
ReplyDeleteAnyone surprised that the chavistocracy would do this?
Quite an unusual one - he was apparently in paid employment despite 'alcohol and drug issues', which cannot have been all that bad.
ReplyDeleteHe'd had a few before he topped himself, which is perfectly reasonable. I'd kill myself if I died without having one for the road.
I saw one Stella-themed shrine done in exquisite taste for some ned who twocced a motor whilst shitfaced, and exhibited less-than-Vettelesque skills in eluding the police by driving into a tree.
Thankfully, the tree was not seriously harmed, and stands holding back tears of mirth at the tawdry tat keeping it company.
Just asking, casual, like, where this tribute might be found, exactly?.
ReplyDeleteJust a question. Have your lower order ghetto-tastic types taken to putting memorials to their relatives who've passed away on the back windows of their cars? This silliness has been going on here in the USA for about 25 years now. (It started out with gang-bangers memorializing their fellow, late, bangers, and then was taken up by the wider ghetto-tastic society.)
ReplyDeletehttp://accordingtojewels.com/call-me-crazy-but-i-dont-get-it/
There's a pikey grave near my Mum's. Very ornate with an engraving of a sports car on it (the young man died in a car crash). There are s number if permanent floral tributes (ie manky plastic flowers) in the shape of a car, a horse passing a finishing post, four aces and a can of Red Stripe.
ReplyDeleteClassy.
I'd have preferred Peroni. ;)
ReplyDelete@ DavefromTacoma
ReplyDeleteThat is unlikely to happen here. Sadly, the pest control industry grinds along as though Callaghan was still in power, with nary three enrichment respec' alignments per week.
If in doubt whether to erect an ephemeral memorial to your blud what got taken down, ask your mother for the address of your nearest witch doctor.
We had a chavstone of empty cans, bottles and plastic flowers appear on the council estate where I live in early December last year.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping a particular local low-life had been done away with.
Turns out the deceased hadn't died at the site nor even lived on the estate. They were a former resident who'd gone back to the West Indies a year or two before and got himself killed over there.
So for 2-3 weeks, we had the chav army adding to the tat and congregating with their tinnies and manky chicken take aways. The estate cleaners scared to clear away the mess because they'd been told it was part of the tribute!!!
It was only at the beginning of this month, after repeated requests to the council, to have the eyesore removed.
This is not as tawdry or unusual as some of you might think: yes in Britain it is a tad 'odd' but take for example the celebration of "The Day of the Dead" in Mexico every November
ReplyDeletepeople set up 'shrines' with photo's to celebrate the lives of lost loved ones and decorate them with articles from food, drinks and other decorations of items that were important to the deceased in life.
far from being 'odd' or tawdry having witnessed the celebrations they actually are quite moving in a way one would not expect and I think a lovely way to 'remember' lost loved ones with a celebration.
given the choice between a weathered tilting falling over gravestone visited perhaps the odd time in a few decades or an annual shrine celebrating my life by loved ones: I know which I'd choose
This is not as tawdry or unusual as some of you might think: yes in Britain it is a tad 'odd' but take for example the celebration of "The Day of the Dead" in Mexico every November
ReplyDeleteWell, up to a point, Lord Copper. Even before the Reformation the Brits weren't over-the-top about remembering the dead in effusive ways. The Victorians went in for some elegant funerary stuff, but stiff upper lip has usually been the way. The point is it may be usual in Mexico, but we don't live there. The characteristic Brit way of dealing with death is understated dignity. It all changed with Diana, I think.
Even then there's a class element. Baroness Thatcher's funeral owed much to the traditional way we dealt with death in these islands (Book of Common Prayer, traditional hymns, everyone wears black ) so you know where you are. The problem with the let-it-all-out approach is it allows endless amounts of offence-taking in impertinent ways from any Tom, Dick or Harry.
Chav shrines are ugly messes usually of football shirts, flags and cheap flowers, garnished with mawkish illiterate messages "U is safe now in heven wiv ur guardian angel") and cheap soft toys. But woe betide the brave person who tries clear it up.
If you wanted to have a roadside shrine in California, you'd have to seek permission and pay a $1000 levy to the State.
ReplyDeletePersonally I find the whole business offensive. "Ooooh look, this is where little Tia had her brains splattered by an 18-wheeler or over there is the tree where Druggie Dean hung himself". Are their lives so meaningless that all they can be remembered for is the particular patch of dirt they happened to drop dead on?
"...and if the former, who's going to get in trouble when underage drinkers nick them?"
ReplyDelete:D
"Thankfully, the tree was not seriously harmed..."
Maybe there is a god...
"Have your lower order ghetto-tastic types taken to putting memorials to their relatives who've passed away on the back windows of their cars?"
Oh, lord no! Or maybe I should say, 'Not yet!'. U'm sure it'll surface here eventually.
" The estate cleaners scared to clear away the mess because they'd been told it was part of the tribute!!!"
/facepalm
" It all changed with Diana, I think."
Yes indeed. Not for the better.
"Are their lives so meaningless that all they can be remembered for is the particular patch of dirt they happened to drop dead on?"
Given they are usually young, probably it is.