My mum and dad were climbers. When Mum died in 1985 she requested her ashes be scattered from Stanage Edge in the Peak District. My brother and I obliged and we got bootfulls of ashes in the process. In 2016 my father died and made the same request. We took his ashes a mile further along the same edge; as they were divorced, my mother and father, and a lot of bad feeling between them. But now their ashes mingle in the wind, the wild beauty of the place. They have to work it out. And in 2015 my uncle died – an Irish death. Full Max-Factor make up and coffin in the sitting room. Turned out he wanted his ashes scattered with my mother. So my cousin (his oldest daughter) and I (her eldest daughter) duly obliged. My mum now has some family support. And I another bootfull of ashes. And I am reminded of the complaint of the conservators for the Malvern Hills – the little pyramids of ashes everywhere this days – how they change the composition of the soil in our wildernesses and beauty spots, and not necessarily for the better. Scattering must be done with care to the environment too!