Summarised from an item in the Eastern Daily News (May 4th '95) monitored for The Natural Death Centre by Yvonne Malik.
Tony, of Banham, near Diss, has just completed a prototype willow coffin which is to be marketed in London. It was commissioned by designer Gemma Nesbitt who hit on the idea after seeing wicker coffins in Nepal.
Tony described his creation as 'almost like a bathtub', rectangular in shape with rounded ends and a huge lid. 'A lot of people are trying to produce very basic coffins which do not involve the use of hardwoods for environmental reasons,' Tony said.
Willow is an easily-renewable resource which does not involve felling trees.
The coffins are easy to make and would be cheaper than traditional types, selling for about £180.
Gemma Nesbitt, the designer, adds in a letter to The Natural Death Centre:
Tony Carter is doing a second pod-shaped willow coffin for me.
I discovered Tony after a long hunt via Nigel Hector at the English Basket and Hurdle Centre in Somerset. I have asked him whether he'd be interested in starting a small business with me. I have endless ideas, but, as so many imaginative people are, I am hopeless at marketing them.
I have spent a lot of time working on a book I call (just as a working title) The Good Tomb Guide, which covers the different traditions of body disposal in history - from paleolithic times to today's cryonics. I have not yet found a publisher for this.
When I was in Calcutta a couple of years ago, I met an American Buddhist woman who was going round the world (must have been pretty rich!) with ten or twelve small ash pots each filled with a couple of spoonfuls of her mother's ashes to be scattered or buried in places her mother had loved.
When an English Buddhist friend of mine died recently I asked a local potter in Dorset to make me some ash pots. People have expressed a lot of interest in them. They are 2"to 3" high and shaped like simple African mud huts or old beehives, of single-fired white (unglazed) clay and have a simple 'lid' which lodges on top. Some have a thin blue line round the lid.
Gemma Nesbitt, Sort, Powerstock, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3TQ (tel 01308 485273; fax 01308 639).
Tony Carter, The Willow Weave Company, the Goat Shed, Rowancroft, Kenninghall Road, Banham, Norwich NR16 2HE (tel 01953 887 107; fax 01953 887201) from about £350 including transport.
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