New Zealand’s ‘coffin clubs’ bury death taboos

In the “coffin clubs” of New Zealand, Some elderly people prepare their final resting place and share a laugh while drinking tea and talking carelessly about the afterlife.

To reach the place where he will rest eternally, Kevin Heyward decided to give his coffin the look of an Austin Healey, a sports car from the 1950s.

“It was my daughter who had the idea,” explains this 79-year-old car enthusiast with a smile, shaking the dust off his work overalls.

His coffin is fully equipped: fake steering wheel, windshield, rubber wheels with steel rims, wooden fenders, hood, side doors and rear-view mirrors.

The heavy coffin, with six wooden handles, even has functional headlights, Heyward explains to AFP in the workshop of the Hastings Coffin Club, on the North Island of New Zealand.

“It weighs a lot and I’m a big man.”. “I already told my six grandchildren that they should start training, because they will have to wear it one day”he jokes.

This is one of four clubs in New Zealand; the first opened in 2010 in Rotorua on the North Island. Some officially have up to 800 members.

At the Hastings club, Jim Thorne, a vivacious 75-year-old motorcycle enthusiast, used his cabinetmaking skills to make a coffin with a painted motorcycle track.

Most of his friends “They get a little stunned and say ‘why are you doing that?’”when they find out about the unusual hobby, Thorne admits.

“It is my contribution to my last days,” reply.

“Dying for a coffin”

“Some people have a mentality whereby [la muerte] It’s almost a taboo that they find very, very difficult to talk about,” says Thorne. “They usually get over it. At the end of the day, it is a fact of life.”

To break the ice with the new ones, ask them: “Are you dying to have a coffin?”

The club’s atmosphere is far from morbid, and jokes abound at tea time.

“We are a little special, but we are happy. “There are always a lot of jokes,” says Helen Bromley, secretary of this club, which also offers a space to talk about death once a week.

“I think everyone here has accepted that they are going to die, whether they are decorating their coffin or helping others with theirs,” considers Bromley.

Some members want to spare their families funeral costs. On average, a funeral in New Zealand costs 10,000 New Zealand dollars ($6,200), according to the National Funeral Directors Association. Prices for the coffins range from NZ$1,200 to NZ$4,000.

“Remember me”

For a membership of NZ$30, the Hastings club provides each member with a hardboard coffin, available in four sizes and ready to be decorated.

During the tea break, Bromley announces that a member with cancer is in intensive care after a fall. Her brother asked the club to prioritize finishing her coffin.

The club also makes urns for ashes, which they sell to the local crematorium, and children’s coffins, which they donate.

“The midwives and nurses at Hastings Hospital ask us to never, ever stop making these small coffins”Bromley declares.

Members also knit blankets, stuffed animals, pillows and hearts for children’s coffins.

Christina Ellison, a 75-year-old member, explains that she lost a child and that it was comforting to know that the club helps other families grieving the loss of a child.

Ellison will be moving soon, but plans to take his blue-gray coffin, named “Remember Me” (Remember me).

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