ALBERT MELTZER'S FUNERAL

I have been told that the funeral of Albert Meltzer will take place on Friday May 24th from 100 Celestial Gardens, in Lewisham, in south London. When I looked a little bit suspicious, I was assured that "one hundred celestial gardens" is a genuine address.
The funeral of Buenaventura Durruti in Barcelona in 1936 was the biggest anarchist demonstration ever, anywhere in the world - many times bigger than the second biggest, the funeral of Kropotkin in Moscow in 1920. Albert's departure is expected to be smaller but less solemn, if the specific instructions he left (quoted by Freddie Baer on the anarchy-list a few days ago) are followed
"Personally, I want to die in dignity but my passing celebrated with jollity. I've told my executors that I want a stand-up comedian in the pulpit telling amusing anecdotes, and the coffin to slide into the incinerator to the sound of Marlene Dietrich. If the booze-up can begin right away, so much the better, and with a bit of luck the crematorium will never be gloomy again. Anyone mourning should be denounced as the representative of a credit card company and thrown out on their ear. Snowballs if in season (tomatoes if not) can be thrown at anyone uttering even worthy cliches like "the struggle goes on" and should anyone of a religious mind offer pieces of abstract consolation they should be prepared to dodge pieces of concrete confrontation.
"If I have miscalculated, as a worthy clerical friend assures me I have, and there really is a God, I'd like to feel if he's got any sense of humour or feeling for humanity there's nobody he would sooner have in heaven than people like me, and if he hasn't, who wants in?"
Albert Meltzer
from I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels
Dave Coull