The Schmooze
A cup of tea in a cemetery can bring much cheer
The United Synagogue have created a great place to invite guests after a stone-setting or a funeral
March 19, 2025 12:42
The United Synagogue have created a great place to invite guests after a stone-setting or a funeral
March 19, 2025 12:42I have to admit that I did not buy my house 30 years ago with any thought at all about its proximity – or, crucially, lack of proximity – to Bushey Jewish Cemetery. I was just married, young and carefree, and it never occurred to me that 30 years later, I would be full of anxiety about the very real problem of where to host our guests after my father’s stone-setting.
But time moves on, and here we were, worrying about venues. My sister lives in Israel, so her flat was out. Should we ask people to drive 40 minutes from Hertfordshire to north-east London for a cup of tea at my house? Or do we go for my brother’s house – just 30 minutes away from the grounds? And if we did, just who was going to pick up the food from some kosher outlet in north-west London – where none of us live – deliver it to his house, then get to the cemetery all before 10am on a Sunday morning?
We’d had the same issue two years earlier for Mum, but then it was obvious – we did the schlepping back and forth, so that Dad could host the after-setting in his own chair and his own home. A kind friend picked up the food at 7am, and we all drove and drove and drove to be there on time. It was good to remember Mum in her own home, and Dad was cheered by being able to invite all the neighbours.
But this was different. Surely we could find somewhere more local to Bushey, to host our friends and family? Another kind friend – we are very blessed – offered their house, just minutes from the grounds. But we needed wheelchair access, and she has a narrow porch and a steep drive. We thought about hotels and pubs, but could we bring in kosher food?
I worried and worried, and then my friend came up with the answer. The United Synagogue have created a visitors’ centre at Bushey Old Cemetery, using a prayer hall that isn’t needed any more now that most burials take place at Bushey New. For a few hundred pounds, we could hire the space, and order in food from Daniel’s of Temple Fortune. The US would provide tables and chairs, and a waitress.
I have to admit that I was a little dubious. Yes – it all sounded wonderfully convenient. A five-minute drive, or a short walk, rather than a long schlep. Plenty of parking, and no need to pick up food, it is all delivered straight to the cemetery. But really, did I want to hold a tea party in a cemetery? I associated prayer halls with chilly gloom. Would it all feel a bit creepy?
My brother and sister were keen, so we agreed, we’d go ahead. But my niggling worries were still there – right until the moment when we walked through the visitors’ centre doors. After the service in the prayer hall at Bushey New, which was downright freezing, the visitors’ centre was warm and comfortable, a large space made smaller with a dividing wall, a sofa and as many tables and chairs as you need.
Friendly staff from the US greeted us, and I’m sure we had at least three waitresses serving hot and cold drinks and handing round the platters of food.
There was ample space to talk to guests, and no feeling of rush or panic. In short, it was the perfect solution, and we were very grateful to everyone concerned. We were only the fifth family to take advantage of this new centre, and if you’re planning a stone-setting I’d recommend booking it up.
Looking back a few weeks later, all my anxieties seem faintly silly – it was, after all, just a cup of tea and a few pastries that I was worrying about.
But a stone-setting packs an emotional punch that you don’t always realise when you’re planning it. Looking at my parents’ graves side by side, I realised that this was the very last thing I would do for them, the end of an era latterly filled with hospital appointments and dashes to A&E, shopping trips to locate woolly jumpers and Waitrose toffees; painstaking explanations of how to operate mobile phones and TV remote controls.
“Mum and Dad would have approved,” we told each other after the guests had left and we emerged into the sunlight.
That meant the world to us, and we will always be grateful to the United Synagogue for having the idea, and making it so nice and so easy to do the right thing.