Funeral Service Times August 2017 October 2018 | Page 31

LIVING ON THROUGH MEMORIAL TREES 31
The largest of the memorial trees are
320cm high with six limbs which span
across 310cm. They are made of COR-
TEN steel, the same type of steel the
Angel of the North in Newcastle is made
from, and they arrive to the respective
premises shiny but quickly oxidise and
darken. Dakin says: “The oxidation process
is the weathering protection for the steel
underneath so it will stand for many years.”
Leaves can then be put on the trees,
which arrive at the destination bare, with
each leaf engraved with a person’s date
of birth, name and death and a possible
inscription on the back. The trees are either
made of copper - which turn green over
time - or an anodised aluminium in a gold
colour which is made to remain shiny for
decades. Each memorial leaf is bolted on
as it is sold. Dakin explains: “When the
families of the bereaved come in to make
arrangements for a funeral at the funeral
home or crematorium or cemetery, they
are given options like columbariums, a slot
in an urn wall, take the ashes home, scatter
them, and now also a memorial leaf.” He
continues: “When they choose a leaf, the
crematorium sends us the order and we
get it to them engraved within five to seven
working days.”
Each limb of the largest trees can bear
100 leaves, meaning in total, 600 people
can be memorialised on the tree which has
a three sqm footprint. Because it covers a
relatively small area and can represent so
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many people, Dakin suggests
that it can even help to combat
the issue of burial space, saying:
“Imagine if you had 600 graves
or 600 plots.”
One of Memorial Trees’ clients
utilised the figures for this very
reason; Dakin points out that
a cemetery in the Netherlands
purchased two of the company’s
largest trees as the graves
needed to be disinterred to
allow the ground to be raised by
60cm to accommodate for the
rising water levels in the country.
“They've very nicely and carefully
- after speaking to the families -
taken up the bones and put them
into a communal bone reservoir
and on top of that there are two
trees,” he says. The company then
gave the bereaved families options
for memorial leaves on each of the
trees as a replacement.
The trees come in other sizes
as well: its smallest, a 60cm tree
serves as a singular memorial and
can be bought by individuals and
used in place of a headstone or urn or kept
at a person’s home, as Dakin says: “I know
there's one nearby in a local cemetery
instead of a gravestone. Someone [else] has
one on their coffee table as a work of art.”
The smallest tree is not able to bear leaves
because of its size. The medium size tree is
120cm and has space for 120 leaves in total,
20 per limb. As for maintenance, Dakin
says: “The tree needs to be hosed down
once a year; that's the recommendation for
COR-TEN steel.” The tree has six limbs with
two designs, welded with three of each,
so that the tree does not look uniformly
symmetrical.
Memorial Trees has also developed a
specially made a 320cm golden tree with
rainbow coloured perspex leaves for the
children’s area of the Waalhoven Cemetery,
Netherlands. “We developed the golden
trees which are made from standard steel
and specially coated and attached perspex
leaves with options in the seven colours of
the rainbow which can also be engraved,”
Dakin says. “The death of children is
especially difficult and its beautiful what
they've done with the landscaping at
another cemetery with a 120cm golden
tree”. There's a circular area with benches
where the family can sit, remember and
leave things hanging in the tree.”
The company predicts that the trees
will last for up to a century, allowing for
the continued use through generations,
not too dissimilar to existing memorial
keepsakes, urns, burial grounds and public
memorial sites. Dakin points out that the
longevity of the trees lines up with modern
lifestyle changes, namely British society’s
increasing preference for cremation. The
most recent figures from Urns for Ashes
OCTOBER 2018