Exit strategy

You may recall the nifty exclusive we brought you earlier this year about the widow who had her husband’s ashes packed with No 6 shot into cartridges and fired off on a shoot at Brucklay Estate in Aberdeenshire. The particular excitement, apart from a very good day out for friends and, indeed, his widow, was that the deceased bagged a fox, which is never a bad thing.

I hesitate to say that the Caledonian Cartridge Company that loaded him into 12-bores has been overwhelmed with shooting widows beating a path from the crem bearing urnfuls of ashes for similar treatment, but the idea has caught the imagination.

The latest twist is a mad keen clay pigeon shot requesting his ashes be compressed into clays. On the whole, I think I’d prefer to be blown from a gun and end up in a pheasant as a bit of extra flavouring. Still, the clay pigeon version seems entirely sensible, especially as clays decompose eventually.

With a bit of luck the idea will catch on. There seems no reason to stop at shotgun cartridges. Stalkers could be incorporated into bullets, the stag’s head mounted with a suitable inscription for the benefit of open-mouthed small children. "Your grandfather shot that after he died."

I am not sure I would go as far as the late Peter Gladstone of Fasque who left instructions that, should he snuff it on a trip to the far reaches of Tibet, he was to be afforded an "air funeral" - that is, laid out in the Tibetan manner for the birds. Gladstone was in search of the extinct ruddy duck, a tricky one as the Bengalis had eaten them all. For the record, he never found the duck. On arriving at its supposed lake, the only duck he saw was a mallard and he had plenty of those back at Fasque. However, a ruddy duck was eventually tracked down living in a zoo in Beijing.

The disposal of fishermen always strikes me as rather a gloomy affair, as they are cast upon the waters in the pouring rain. Someone once sent me a faded label found on the shores of Loch Lomond printed with the words "Aileen Robertson, her remains", which we keep on the mantlepeice. It’s rather depressing, but not half as depressing as the scattering of Alec Allen on the River Towy in Wales. Alec caught the largest fish on record in 1933, not a salmon but a 338lb sturgeon that he had to bludgeon to death with a rock after it straightened the gaff. He offered it to the King and Queen, a sturgeon being a royal fish, but got a terse note back saying the royals were not in residence, so he sold it to a Swansea fish merchant for 2.50. The caviar was eaten by local pigs.

When he died, Alec was scattered on the river where he caught the fish. The local clergy wouldn’t turn up because the river was not consecrated ground. It poured with rain, but a trout popped out at the appropriate moment. I think I’ll stick with the shotgun funeral. Gun but not forgotten. Boom boom.