A highly unusual way to scatter loves ones' ashes

When we think about scattering a loved ones' ashes we might picture a favourite spot or peaceful place that holds an important part in our lives. 

Not many of us would think about releasing them from a drone; but that's exactly what Matt Young thought about with Aerial Ashes; a service which scatter ashes using a unique slow‑release mechanism that created a gentle, symbolic plume in the sky

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast welcomes Matt to discuss the origins of the business, the symbolism of the process, and the practicalities of wind speed, moisture, altitude and aerodynamics which all play a factor in the controlled, elegant release of ashes which creates a 100m wide plume and a sense of awe and wonder. 

The drone is just half the story says Young. What resonates most is the emotional impact. Families families who had kept ashes for years, unsure what to do; others who feared the mess and distress of scattering by hand. One widow, unable to leave the UK because she “couldn’t leave her husband behind”, finally found closure when his ashes were released over their favourite spot in Brighton.

With a documented rise in secular celebrations of life over traditional church funerals what emerges from the conversation is not a novelty service, but a thoughtful, highly specialised way of helping families honour their loved ones - with dignity, symbolism and a sense of place.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

Thank you to our podcast sponsors LEAP Estates, Estate Research, Property Ladder Group and Finders International.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to the today's Wilson Probate podcast, one of the leading sources of information for the Wilson Probate sector. Don't forget to subscribe and sign up to our free newsletter at today's Wilson Probate.co.uk and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello, welcome along to the latest today's Wills and Probate podcast. I think it's fair to say that the discussion we're about to have, you're unlikely to have heard elsewhere unless you've come across Matt in the course of your work. Because today we're going to be talking about how you deal with people's ashes who want to be remembered in a particular way or want to be delivered somewhere a little bit unique. Trying not to be too cryptic here, Matt, but it's great to have you on the podcast. We're going to talk about what you do in just a second. Tell us a bit about yourself. You're the director of a company called Aerial Ashes. So give us a bit of a flavor as to what's what that is about.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

I own Aerial Ashes. So Aerial Ashes, we we scatter ashes by drone, which is that's all we do. That's that's yeah. So we're the only people in the country allowed to do this. We've got a special exemption from the CA to to allow us to drop articles, namely ashes, from a drone, and that we do it across the country.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I said that I I mean I would very much doubt many people have come across this. And in fact, when we were first introduced, we had a conversation, must have been about 40, 45 minutes, and it felt like just 20 questions, Matt, because I had so many that I I hope to be able to articulate uh through the course of the discussion today as well. But I mean, number one, how on earth did you ever get involved in dropping ashes from drones?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Oh I'm I'm sort of standing on the shoulders of a giant of his in Chris, who is a he was the founder, he started the business, and he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, and he was asked to scatter ashes off his helicopter one day. Now, Chris was a perfectionist, so he couldn't just scatter the ashes. What he did is he worked out a slow release mechanism from the helicopter and he worked out how to make the ashes disperse. So ash is a bit like gritty tau compiler. As soon as you disturb it, it plumes. So what he wanted to do with his helicopter is find a way to make a large plume in the sky of the ash. So he worked out the aerodynamics of the helicopter and he did this and he did it really, really well, and everyone thought it was great. And he made a bit of a rod for his own back because he kept getting asked by more and more people to do this again when they saw it and saw how well it went. He then he left the Air Force, and unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to keep the helicopter. So he but he made a bit of a niche. So he tried to or he spent 18 months trying to work out how to do it with a large drone instead, and that's how he sort of started aerial ashes. So 18 months later, he had like a very clever, what we call this the perfect scatter. So you fly the drone in a certain way, you release the ashes quite slowly from a like a unique drop box, and then the ashes will plume in the sky and create a plume of ash about 100 meters wide that gradually disappears. And it's quite symbolic. I think people describe it as like seeing their loved ones going to heaven very slowly and gradually in front of them. And then when he saw like the reaction people had to this, he he realized it was a business and something that it helped people, it helped people with their grief and it gave them some closure. Um so that's that's how this business started. I got involved through drone work really. I helped Chris at a scattering ceremony in Brighton, and those lady turned up and she had the ashes of her husband, and she looked fairly traumatized, she clearly hadn't slept. And then we did this scattering ceremony, and then afterwards she was a different person. She was like it was gave her closure, and she said, I I could I wanted to move to Cyprus, but I couldn't go because I couldn't leave her husband. And this is him going to their special place, and and Brighton next to the pier was where they used to go. They used to meet and go and have fishing chips there, and and he was scattered where his special place was in a really nice, dignified way, and it gave her the closure, and she literally said, I can now move to Cyprus. I've dealt with this. Uh like I was just amazed by it. I thought, Chris, this is lovely. And and Chris, like he's very polite and he's very personable, but afterwards he said, Oh, they're all like that. But he was quite blasé about it, as in not in a negative way, but in a that is the standard reaction. Like the reviews we get are overwhelmingly positive because the service is is unique, personal to people, but but yeah, but but it's really nice, and it's really symbolic, it's really lovely.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

It's a real almost a clash of cultures, it's a it's a clash of kind of some of that symbolism that you've talked about, but a feat of engineering as well. I mean, you describe sort of this slow release mechanism as as creating this plume of ash.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Very much so, yeah. And that's sort of really useful for us because it's kind of I've had people, not in the UK, I've had people internationally try and copy what we do, and it's so obvious because they basically get a drone and a box. The box opens and it's a bit like opening a bin, the ashes just drop out and fall, and it looks terrible. So, yeah, you know, it's it's it's it took a long time for him to get it right and how he wanted it to go with the the drop box. And uh, we've continued to develop it because obviously what you can never have is the ashes coming out too soon. You don't you can't afford to make mistakes with this. So, yeah, no, it's a it's a very clever bit of kit. It's very simple, but very clever how it works, and it's all about like the wind speed and flying in a certain way with the aerodynamics of the helicopter to create that large plume in the sky that's so symbolic and so so good.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

You talked about the fact that you have uh this exemption from the civil aviation authority.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, yes, that's right, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I mean, there are some really interesting practicalities to this. Uh and I remember when we sort of first chatted about it. My sort of immediate thoughts went to you've got downdraft from the blades of the drone. Presumably you've got to take into account wind speed as well. Yeah. How do we make sure that people don't end up with ash in their face? I mean, that there are there are quite a number of different factors here that you need to be thinking about. I mean, talk us through some of the practicalities of flying the drone and then you know, actually getting to the point where you can release the ash.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

You're absolutely right. And that's probably one of the biggest reasons people use us, is because they've tried to scatter ashes themselves before. What they thought would be a lovely, moving sort of finalization ceremony turned into quite traumatic, but the ashes sort of hit hit the sea, whatever they were dancing, trying to avoid waves, the ashes plumed, it covers them, it covers it, it gets in their hair. I spoke to someone last week, she said for weeks I had ash in my handbag. Every time I went in it, I found more ash. And this is their loved ones, and this is and she was traumatized by it. And lots of people say, I could never, I've done it once, I can never do that again. So the practicalities, it's it's like we've we've done it lots of times, and then you know it's interesting to me, but ash and drops and plumes and responds differently depending on the weather. And we've learned this over a period of time because obviously we could never have scattering ashes on people. That would be that would be awful, that would be disaster for us. So we're very, very careful with where the wind's going, so we know roughly where the ashes will go. We fly in a certain way to make sure that we we can scatter the ash how we want it to be. We can alter the height, and the drone, it's not really about the drone, the drone just is a basic a flying scatter tube. So we can fly sort of if we want it to go further in a certain way, we can fly higher or we can fly lower. And also moisture contents in the air means the ashes, if it's quite quite damp, so when it's just rained and the air is really, really damp, the the the ash holds into the air a lot better. Sometimes it even goes up. It's it's quite it's quite interesting and it's difficult to sort of read, and it's taken a lot of times to get it right. And obviously, you know, we need to, if people want to be scattered in a certain place, we need to make sure that happens. So it's generally quite a lot of planning, but you can only plan so much, and a lot of it's trying to work out on the day exactly what's going on, and the wind changes as well, obviously, on a second-by-second basis. So there is quite a lot to it, it's not as simple as it might sound or look, but it's important we get it right.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

What about the logistics of where you can scatter? Because presumably there are restrictions to being able to scatter these things. I know, for example, I mean, I've spoken to couriers in the past who courier ashes around the world, and they say that they've there are quite strict rules and regulations around which carriers will carry ashes, which carriers won't, that kind of thing. But equally, there must be sort of rules and regulations around where you can and can't scatter.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, no, that's that's it. You can't you can't just buy a budget postal service and then hope the ashes don't get lost. So, yeah, no, you need that most raural mail don't carry ashes, most couriers don't. We use a specialist courier if we have to move the ashes between one place and another. So, legalities and practicalities. So, obviously, if you scatter on someone's land, you need landowner's permission, which is completely correct. Obviously, you know, I wouldn't want someone coming in my front garden and scattering ashes there. So we need to get landowners' permission. But what we can do is because I suppose we scatter in such a good way and the ashes dissipate, we don't have an impact on the ground. So we've done some sort of SSI sites, we've done golf courses, really top-end golf courses, race courses, football pitches, not on the pitch for Premier League teams, but but a lot of them, what we're doing is we're scattering overlooking them. So the Premier League team, it's like now a blanket no, you you've got no chance, they won't allow this to happen. But what we can do uniquely is we can fly where we've got landowners' permission or waterways nearby, we can perfectly lawfully scatter overlooking the pitch, which is going to be, I think, really huge because that's their special place. And that's what it's all about. It's all about people being laid to rest where they like to be in their happy place, that be their favourite beach or their golf course, or like I said, overlooking their football stadium forever. So that's very much sort of what we offer and what we can provide.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

What are the best bits of the role? You you mean you talked about some of the satisfaction you get from people not knowing what to do with the ashes and and finding a route through you to some piece?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, that's that's very common. That I think lots of people they lose their loved ones and they go right and they get a phone call or they right, your ashes are ready, and you go and get them. And it's like it's quite common. They literally walk out with a fumes rectors or the crematorium with ashes and they go no idea what they want to do with them. They they and they end up going home, they go on a shelf, and then they go in the loft. And I've had people have have gone to charity shops, and people have given people have ended up doing house clearances and taking the ashes to charity shops, and it's it's not it's not dignified. So what lots of people come to us. I think the longest one is about 20 years between their loved one dying and then wanting to or being ready to scas their ashes. But yeah, we we solve the problem. So we make it where they want it to be, however they want it to be, is what we do. So yeah, no, that's that's very much it's answering that that problem of what do I do with my loved one's ashes? I've no idea.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

And there's no kind of client type particularly. I I mean I'm I'm trying to think whether there would be a type of client that that might be attracted to this as a as a potential solution.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

That's that's a really good question. I think when we first started, we thought the link would be to aviation. And I remember one of the first scatterings that I took part in, we we assumed it would be an aviation link. We spoke to the lady and said, Did your husband like aviation then? And she went, Oh no, he hated it. When oh well, I think we're a bit taken back. I went, that's so can I ask, why did you think aerial ashes? She said, We just wanted to be together in the moment. We didn't want anyone to have the stress of it. We just wanted someone to take the stress off us, scatter them in a nice way, and we could all be together and we could focus on the moment. And that's very much what we do. So, yeah, I think we're not about anyone in particular, we're about people's, like I said, I keep saying it, that's their special place where they were happy. So finding a way to scatter their ashes in a really dignified way in their special place, and it gives them that memorialization that they can go back to that site to remember their loved ones. They know where they are forever, they can sit on a bench on the beach looking out to sea and have a chat with them, and they can walk away from them. And that makes that special place the place they can remember them. And in a way, it's a lot nicer than possibly like a gravestone in a cemetery or or something else. And we're getting so many people now, and our direct cremations obviously is a it's in the funeral industry, it's quite contentious, but we're getting lots of people who who want the direct cremation or book it for themselves, and then their loved ones come along later and go, but we wanted some sort of ceremony. This isn't they didn't want the fuss, but we kind of needed, and I think there's there's there's sort of psychological evidence that says having having that finalization in one way or another does actually help with people giving them that closure to the grief. So there's lots of people who sort of find themselves one way with their loved ones having a direct cremation, they want the finalization, and we can do the ceremony and give them that.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So there's no element to what you do that's religious in any way necessarily. I mean, because you know, to your point about direct cremation, there's this real rise of secularism, isn't there, that people feel connected spiritually in some way, but it's not a religious spiritualism, is it? You you you don't particularly sort of have any religious elements to what you do, for example.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Not usually. There are there are religions that have to have the ashes scattered in running water. So obviously that's something we can do, and there's like rivers where we can go where we can scatter in running waters for religious requirements, but but no, in the whole, what we do isn't particularly religious, it it's fairly neutral religion-wise. I think obviously some and again some some religions don't allow ashes scattering or cremating cremation. So so yeah, obviously, that's nothing we can get involved with. But it we've also had vicars where priests doing ceremonies on the beach, so we can make it religious if that's what people want. And like I said, it's it's flexible, it's whatever they want it to be, and that's that's really important to us. It's their ceremony, their way.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

If it's not too crass a question, Matt, tell us about uh perhaps some of the worst bits of the role because it it sounds as though it's a really interesting kind of business that you're you're running, but there there must be there must have been some disaster stories or or there must have been something that's that's gone wrong at some point.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

No, I've got to say we we try really, really hard to make sure it doesn't go wrong. There's been no disasters. I think one of the most frustrating parts is is I guess some organisations that I probably not shouldn't name them, it's not fair to name, but they're quite archaic that have some nice grounds that meant something to people, and sometimes they're quite resistant. So we've had people who like literally volunteered for their organizations for years, and then that's their their happy place, and then they they pass and they want to be scattered at that location, and they sort of feel almost that it's not an unreasonable request because they gave so much to it, and then when it's from some organizations a blanket, oh no, you can't do that. I think it's quite disappointed for them and their family. I suppose that's probably the most frustrating part of it. But as far as sort of issues go, that yeah, we've we've we've there's a lot of the issues that could yeah, touch with, yeah, please, yeah, absolutely. But a lot of the issues like with the drone, the drug, the dropbox, we we have processes to try and minimize the chance. So we we're we like you can never say never because it's a bit like you can buy a brand new car and you can break down on the way home from the big the dealership, but we we always test the drone before we fly. It's like we've got a really strict maintenance schedule. We test it before we load it, we get to site, we test it, we load the ashes, we test it. So at every stage we try and make sure that if there's any issues, we know about it and can overcome it before the customer comes. Because yeah, the the last thing we want to do is have any issues.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

I sense this job takes you all over the country.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, we cover from Cornwall to North Scotland, so yeah, literally travelled everywhere, yes, which is nice.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

And I also sense from the way that you're describing it that there is a an increase in demand for these sorts of services.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's hard to sort of narrow it down to particular reason. I think we're getting more and more known. So there's more people, and yeah, we like you say, not not many people know us, but but we're getting more and more sort of well known, we're with more fuel directors. We've got we've got lots of people who sort of are putting us down in their will as an amendment just to say this is my request that when I go, I'd like my ashes scattered. For one reason or another, some people don't have people who will do it for them, so they they don't have relatives or loved ones that so they that but they want to go. And like we've got people who've pre-booked them and their sister, so when their time goes, we're going to take both sets of ashes to the Isle of White and scatter them together, which is what they wanted. So yeah, so I think it's difficult to know because of the marketing and because of the business growing, or because of the sort of change in industry. But yeah, certainly direct formation's affecting it, and that's like I said, increasing it. And then I think, yeah, just just getting more more known, more mainstream. And I think as a as a whole, celebrations of life is a big thing in the funeral industry, making it personal, not I guess the traditional funeral of everyone sat in a room and singing songs is is changing, and people want it to suit them and and their personal thing. We've had funeral rectors who wear Everton shirts, and then the ashes then we scatter overlooking the Everton stadium. It's it like it it it all fits up. That was them, and that's what they liked, and and their funeral can represent them. That's yeah, I think it's all about choice. It's all about them, their choices, and then they can choose and make it whatever they want it to be, and that's good, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

I suggested at the start of the discussion, Matt, that uh it would be unlikely that many of the listeners will have come across your service particularly, but this conceptually it was certainly a bit alien to me when when we were first introduced. So hopefully, listeners have learned something new today. Great to have you on the podcast, really appreciate you joining. Um, I mean, you've got a website that people can jump on, haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, absolutely. www.arialhashes.co.uk. So if anyone wants to find out more, that's that's our website.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Brilliant. And as as I say, you know, really appreciate you joining the podcast and talking us through some of the mechanics of what I think is something quite remarkable, actually. So yeah, thanks so much for joining and for sharing your story.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Thank you, David. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

The today's Wills and Probate Podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider. It's also available on today'swheels and probate.co.uk. My thanks to Matt. Thank you as ever for listening, and we'll see you again soon.