Up at Sunderland crem there’s a book where you can write little messages to whoever you’ve come to visit. Isn’t that great? Linda Johnson, pictured above, has been popping in and writing little messages to her mum for the last eight years — and to her dad since Christmas.

  Lord Bonomy’s exasperation with the NHS, cremation authorities and funeral directors, whose ill-informed advice and guidance led so many thousands of parents of babies who had died to suppose that there would be no ashes after cremation, caused him to recommend the establishment of an inspectorate of crematoria: Scottish Ministers should appoint