Wake Bake Off?

What happens when someone is at the centre of a much loved tradition and then they die? Homemade and hand decorated cakes were a collab between our parents. Then Dad died. End of an era? Not quite.

Hello there, mortal pal

KV here.

So, LV is baaaaaaaaaaaaack. I for one am very pleased. Welcome back, sister. But go easy. No crazy moves.

Over the last week, I’ve been working with two families to co-create imaginative funeral ceremonies that involve personalised mourning rituals.

One of the funerals took place on Monday in a municipal crematorium chapel. I helped make the ceremony more intimate by bringing our bamboo trestle legs so that the coffin could be placed immediately in front of the pews, rather than far away, up some steps, in the alcove at the back of the chapel. This allowed the family, including two disabled relatives, to feel close to their person for a final time. And for the second half of the ceremony, they gathered around the coffin, hands touching the top. At the end, they gently lifted the coffin and carried it slowly to the back of the chapel, a final act of love and service.

Together we crafted a ceremony with a quiet rhythm and gentle flow. More and more I find that my role as celebrant involves being part creative producer, part storyteller and part ceremonialist.

Side note: the bamboo trestle legs are more aesthetically pleasing than a metal bier - a bit like a hospital trolley - which is often used. A wheeled metal bier was used at our dad’s funeral. It felt jarring against the natural feel of the willow coffin. And we now know it didn’t have to be that way. The rope handles on the coffin were weight-bearing, so we definitely could have carried - rather than awkwardly wheeled - the coffin and placed it on wooden trestles or similar. It would have been kinder on our eyes.

Anywayyyyyyyy, when I’m working with families, I LOVE listening to their stories, especially the family traditions they’ve created and carried out over the years. And this got me thinking about some of the Vigurs traditions, one of which was homemade and hand-decorated cakes for all family occasions. Our mum (MV) made the cakes and our dad (PFV) would decorate them. Here’s one from 1984 on LV’s birthday. I have sad-face syndrome because I wished it was my cake. I can still taste the pink water icing of the bowtie.

We even had a fair bit of family cake banter with Dad in his Positively Peter Vigurs Facebook Group in 2021 (the year before he died). Here’s some sisterly bants about the above photo from three years ago.

We also really enjoyed Dad’s idea about creating a farewell chocolate buttons ‘tombstone’ cake (see below). This didn’t happen while he was alive. But it would be great to make it to mark his birthday or his death day next year. We could read the tiny poem he wrote (also below) before we ceremonially eat it.

Actually, I’m now having ideas about all of us (that means you too) having a go at creating DIY memorial cakes. Hashtag: DEAD GOOD WAKE BAKES.

#DEADGOODWakeBakes

We could have a Wake Bake Off.

Here’s PFV’s short-form cake poem. There was a lot of this sort of thing while he was on steroids.

And don’t forget the extra line to end the poem. Chocolate button mic drop.

By the way, there wasn’t a recreation of the 1984 clown cake for my 44th birthday. My last cake decorated by Dad was an iced Victoria sponge with fondant icing long-tailed tits (it’s my favourite bird, man). A weirdly incredible effort given that he was on steroids and chemo at the time.

We’ll be sharing a gallery mash-up of a selection of four decades of Vigurs cakes with our paid subscribers, where the chocolate button lore is evident. And I’ll explain how the tradition has since been adapted and passed on.

We’d love to know what traditions are important to you and yours? What traditions have been handed down? Have any old traditions stopped? What new traditions have been created? Please do share some of your traditions with us. We live for these stories.