Inspired by death: why a British woman goes to the funeral of strangers

You can find beauty even in death. Jean Trend-Hill likes to walk around cemeteries and gets inspired by contemplating graves. She often goes to the funerals of complete strangers. The British woman even ordered a special mourning dress in which she attends funeral ceremonies. Close women jokingly call her a "mourner for rent" and are sympathetic to her strange hobby. Find out why Jin goes to strangers' funerals from our material.

55-year-old Jean is an actress, artist and photographer from London. She often goes to funerals of people she doesn't know. Over the past ten years, the British woman has attended more than 150 funeral ceremonies. Basically, these were the funerals of those who had no relatives and friends left.

Jean was 14 years old when her father died of lung disease in 1980. The girl helped her mother in organizing the funeral. After that, she wanted to work in the funeral services bureau. But soon the British woman became interested in traveling, and then became an employee of the civil service.

When Jean was 20 years old, her mother died of cancer. The girl had to organize a funeral again. Almost every year, relatives and loved ones left for another world, and their families turned to the woman for help. Soon the British woman began to feel at home in the cemetery.

In her free time, a woman makes sketches and photographs in cemeteries. Here she feels a special closeness with her deceased parents. Jean likes to wander between the graves, look at the tombstones, imagining what kind of people are buried under them.

Most of all, the British woman likes the burials of the Victorian era. She admires statues of angels, crosses and crypts. Sometimes Jin cleans neglected graves and brings flowers to the tombstones. The British woman even ordered a Victorian-style mourning dress for a solemn funeral.

Cemetery workers offered the woman to come to the funeral of people who had no relatives left. She is especially sensitive to the burial of veterans. At funeral ceremonies, Jin feels quite natural. Sometimes a British woman is asked to go to the funeral instead of them, if people do not have the opportunity to say goodbye to the deceased in person. She puts on a mourning dress and reads a farewell speech if she is asked to do so.

Jean's family and friends are quite normal about her strange hobby. They jokingly call the woman a "rent-a-mourner."

A British woman often thinks about her own funeral. She wants to be taken on her last journey in a horse-drawn carriage, and her body cremated and buried next to her deceased parents. Jin says he is not afraid of death because it is inevitable. While she is alive, a woman will go to the funerals of strangers to pay her last tribute to their memory.

Even if a person was a criminal during his lifetime, his grave may be the most luxurious in the cemetery. Here's what the burial sites of the most famous villains look like.