So: Mama was an Austrian national, and a language teacher, who came over to work after the war as an au pair to improve her English. She met my grandfather, Papa, at Mass; after a certain degree of to-and-fro-ing she married him and moved to England. However, there's a family plot in the graveyard of the church they were married in over in Austria, and she always said there's nothing worse than an untended grave, so we ended up cremating her and taking her back over to inter her with her mother (and, eventually, Her Brother The Olympian Pentathlete, though he's still going strong).
HOWEVER, she died in the UK. And it's (very crudely) illegal to be in possession of human remains in Austria unless you're a medical professional or a member of the clergy. Which means that you can't fly into Austria carrying human remains, because they'll get taken off you at Customs (because you very much have to declare them when checking in, because there is no way they don't show up in luggage scanners).
So instead we shoved her into my mother's backpack and flew into Switzerland, which is much more relaxed about these things; stayed the night at my uncle's; and took the train over the border the following day. Trains, you see, don't need cargo manifests in the same way as aeroplanes.
The parish priest did not bat an eyelid, and made no enquiries at all whatsoever as to how we'd imported her.
no subject
So: Mama was an Austrian national, and a language teacher, who came over to work after the war as an au pair to improve her English. She met my grandfather, Papa, at Mass; after a certain degree of to-and-fro-ing she married him and moved to England. However, there's a family plot in the graveyard of the church they were married in over in Austria, and she always said there's nothing worse than an untended grave, so we ended up cremating her and taking her back over to inter her with her mother (and, eventually, Her Brother The Olympian Pentathlete, though he's still going strong).
HOWEVER, she died in the UK. And it's (very crudely) illegal to be in possession of human remains in Austria unless you're a medical professional or a member of the clergy. Which means that you can't fly into Austria carrying human remains, because they'll get taken off you at Customs (because you very much have to declare them when checking in, because there is no way they don't show up in luggage scanners).
So instead we shoved her into my mother's backpack and flew into Switzerland, which is much more relaxed about these things; stayed the night at my uncle's; and took the train over the border the following day. Trains, you see, don't need cargo manifests in the same way as aeroplanes.
The parish priest did not bat an eyelid, and made no enquiries at all whatsoever as to how we'd imported her.