Mosaic at crematorium honours bereavement service

A colourful mosaic dedicated to volunteers who worked for a bereavement service has been unveiled at a crematorium.

The tribute, made up of 1,000 pieces of glass, depicts a southern migrant hawker dragonfly, the logo of the Milton Keynes Bereavement Service, which offered free counselling to people in and around the city between 1979 and 2022.

The mosaic, by artist Melanie Seymour, hangs in the Chapel of Remembrance at Crownhill Crematorium and Cemetery in the city.

Seymour said the project, commissioned during the Covid-19 pandemic, kept her going in lockdown as "work for many creatives came to a halt".

She said the work was painstaking and delicate and took three months to create.

"Some pieces take 30 snips to cut, such as petals," she said.

"I use a variety of materials to ensure a mosaic looks stunning, and I alter materials depending on where a mosaic will be installed."

Jeni Pratt, a former volunteer for the service, said Covid-19 had provided many challenges for the service, but it had still been able to provide telephone counselling to clients.

But referrals fell as new ways of offering support to the bereaved increased and a decision was taken to close the service in 2022, she added.

She said she hoped the mosaic would help carry on its good work "by giving visual comfort, [through] colour and light, to those whose lives are temporarily darkened by grief".

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