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A farmer in England planned his own drive-in on a sports field where he played football as a young man, with the hearse parked in front of the goal.
Peter Cole, 80, died suddenly at his home in Sibton, Suffolk, on September 20 after suffering a heart attack.
Cole, who was active in his local church, had spent much of the Covid-19 lockdown calling for outdoor services so people could be together.
He helped organize his town’s first drive-in funeral the week before he died.
His daughter-in-law Michele Cole said: “After we helped him conduct the church service, he told us ‘you know what to do now. If I die, you can organize a funeral in the field.’
“Unfortunately, he died the following weekend.”
More than 100 people in 60 cars attended the drive-in service at the Peasenhall and Sibton playing fields, where Mr. Cole used to play goalkeeper for Peasenhall United.
The hearse was parked in front of the gate, according to his wishes.
The friends volunteered as butlers to signal cars to park a safe distance from each other, and the service was played through individual Bluetooth speakers in each car with the help of a drive-in company.
Mr. Cole, a father of five, who had 10 grandchildren, lived in the Sibton area his entire life and was the caretaker of the chapel used by the two neighboring towns.
The chapel was closed during the lockdown and Mr. Cole lobbied for outdoor services because many older people in the village were unable to access church services online.
“All summer we were talking to him about this church service because that’s really what he wanted to do, for people who feel very lonely,” said Ms. Cole.
“It is quite a rural area and they had nowhere to go because the church was closed.”
She said Mr. Cole’s garden was near the field where the funeral was held and she spent the summer thinking about how she could use it for a church service.
He had seen people in the locality who had died and had “very small funerals and there were people who were really struggling with that.”
So he came up with the idea of a drive-in funeral so people could be together.
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