There are no surprises about the music chosen for Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, for clearly she and her family discussed her demise, which is all too rare due to our society’s still strong taboo about death and dying.

The former Prime Minister didn’t share this irresponsible approach to one of the most important decisions we must take, as she insisted she did not want her body to lie in state or money to be spent on a fly-past. Even if she had dismissed the idea of planning her end of life event, as a past Prime Minister she would have been leaned on to approve her funeral arrangements of which the songs and readings are hugely important elements.

Her staunch Methodism was well known and she often cited Christianity to justify her support for the market economy and capitalism. Her Methodist upbringing will thus be commemorated by Charles Wesley’s hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and her patriotism by the music played at the start and end of the service by a British-only group of composers, and the last hymn, I Vow To Thee My Country.

Lady Thatcher wanted the service to be ‘framed’ by British music, hence the scores by Henry Purcell, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The pieces by Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure and Johann Sebastian Bach are excellent choices too.

The order of service features Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality and TS Eliot’s Little Gidding.

She also decided that she was to be cremated, which is a break with tradition, and one of which we approve. We would have approved even more had she (or her family) chosen a green funeral and a woodland burial.

While not Thatcherites, most of the My Last Song team are old enough to understand her place in history and admire her courage in standing up to bullies whether the undemocratic trades union bosses holding the country to ransom or the fascist Argentinean military dictator General Galteri invading the Falklands. And on balance we agree that her funeral should reflect her place as a major figure, unlike the political pygmies that followed her as Prime Minister.

My Last Song was created to encourage and support people to plan their own or their loved ones’ funerals so they have the end of life event that best reflect their lives and values.

We have many thousand visitors every month but don’t think these include the Thatchers. Even so, it’s encouraging to know that the family’s planning of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral validates the My Last Song message. For what’s good for former Prime Ministers should be good for the rest of us too.

The Brighton Argus covered the story of a local church funeral at which a mobile phone went off…and the ringtone was ‘Staying Alive’, the Bee Gee’s hit.

The most interesting part of this rather amusing story is the comments on the paper’s website. Most contributors thought this was funny and many suggested suitable secular songs which they wanted for their funerals.

Earlier this month, on the west coast of the US rather than the south coast of the UK, a ‘pop culture’ journalist posted a blog on the songs he wanted played at his funeral.

At the time of writing, 105 comments had been posted with the most diverse, quirky, in some case shocking, selections of songs. And these have been ‘liked’ (and occasionally ‘disliked’) often by ten or more people.

And in my email inbox today somebody asked how they could contribute the five songs they wanted to be remembered by. When this selection comes through it will be the 74^th contribution.

Google ‘funeral songs’ and you’ll find pages of websites with lists of suggested tracks, though with the same ten or so tracks often appearing.

My Last Song appears on page 2, which we hope to improve on, but you get my drift…this interest in personal choices of music to mark your ending is growing in popularity.  I’m frequently interviewed on local radio stations to discuss ‘funeral music’ presumably because the editors and presenters know funeral songs interest their audiences.

What does this prove? I rather agree with Charles Cowling, author of the Good Funeral Guide, who believes that the baby boomer generation are now addressing their mortality and are redefining death culture as they redefined youth culture in the 1960s.

Not for them the dreary, dull and depressing traditional funerals with a couple of Victorian songs expressing religious sentiments when they have few if any religious beliefs.

No, increasingly this group want to be remembered by a positive, celebratory and personal ceremony. All Things Bright and Beautiful is out, What A Wonderful World is in.

So I think the future is looking bright for the increasing number of companies, some of them joined in a loose alliance known as the Farewell Innovators, positioned to give this market what it needs, not what rather traditional and inflexible funeral directors, think is right for it.

Less than one in five people who voted in a poll on funeral music choices on My Last Song chose hymns to be played at their funerals.

The poll, carried out between 14 June and 16 August, asked people to vote on the type of music they wanted played at their funeral.

Thirty nine percent of the 150 voters chose modern secular while those who wanted a mixture of all categories accounted for 27 per cent. The full results are given later.

The poor showing of hymns confirms the trend towards funerals with a greater secular content.

My Last Song describes funerals which mix religious and secular elements as the Modern British Funeral.

It is more celebratory than grieving as family and friends give tributes to the loved one rather than listening to readings delivered by the minister.

Other features of the Modern British Funeral include informal dress codes, colourful eco-friendly coffins, greater accessibility to mourners of other faiths and interment in Woodland burial sites.

Modern British Funerals also include civil ceremonies held at local council buildings or other suitable non-religious locations. Civil celebrants are trained to officiate at funerals which mix secular and religious elements.

Once people face their own mortality, the more likely they are to want a Modern British Funeral. If they leave it to others, it is more likely they will have a traditional funeral that doesn’t reflect their views or lifestyle.

The choices, and number of votes, were:

Hymns: 27;

Modern secular (popular music from about the 1920s onwards): 59;

Classical secular (non-religious classical music): 11;

Classical religious (songs from requiems, Ave Maria, sacred classical music): 6;

A mix of these: 40;

Something else (poetry and non-musical readings): 7.

Visitors to My Last Song contribute their favourite five farewell songs. So far 48 people have contributed their five farewell songs. Only two people have asked for a hymn.

The most popular farewell songs that visitors have so far contributed are:

What A Wonderful World: Louis Armstrong

Heartbeats: José González

Here Comes the Sun: The Beatles

I Say A Little Prayer: Aretha Franklin

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart: Al Green

Je ne regrette rien: Edith Piaf

My Funny Valentine: Sarah Vaughan

Start Me Up: The Rolling Stones

There’s still a day to go before the end of the first My Last Song poll.  It asks what type of music you want played at your funeral and the choices are between hymns, modern secular, classical secular, classical religious, a mix of those and something else.

I’m not going to give away the numbers who polled, but I’m intrigued by the four per cent who went for something else. I don’t think they were wanting the classic Cannonball Adderley Blue Note jazz album Somethin’ Else, which highlighted a young Miles Davis. Possibly poetry or readings, or even silence.

More interesting though is how few people – 18 per cent at the time of writing – wanted hymns.

People coming across My Last Song, or accepting my invite to vote in the poll, are likely to be interested in their personal choice of music and unless they are strong Christians, this won’t include Hymns.

Of the ten or so funerals I’ve attended, about half were traditional and featured hymns. They had the benefit of encouraging all the mourners to join in, which meant we felt we shared the same emotions as we knew the melodies or were happy to follow the choir.

But those ceremonies where secular music was chosen were far more interesting as the officiant gave a brief description of why the song was chosen and it helped bring back memories or know something new about the person to whom we were saying goodbye. Mourners continued to discuss the songs at the reception and, forgive the horrible term, they added more value to the send off than the traditional hymns which, while giving everyone the opportunity to have a good sing, were forgotten as soon as the last note on the organ stilled into silence.

Anyway, in the My Last Song poll, secular modern songs scored well over twice the votes of hymns, and are followed by the sensible compromise of a mix of secular and classic.

If in the next 36 hours, lots of devout Christians enter the poll and there’s a surge in support for hymns, then so be it, but I think that’s unlikely.  So, if an early ‘exit poll’ is to be believed, secular songs are considerably more popular as choices for farewell music.

Strange then that hymns are sung at so many funerals that take place even in today’s secular society.

I will be considering the reasons for this in my next blog.  It will be next week so don’t hold your breath in anticipation.

My thanks to Robin Smith, founder of Rokpool, whose feedback on the registration process for My Last Song has resulted in a faster and streamlined registration.

Robin has also submitted his fave five farewell rock tracks to My Last Song which included the gorgeous Sting track Fields of Gold and Here There and Everywhere by the Beatles.

I haven’t put mine on there yet, as they change every time I write out the list. And also, although an atheist, I do think that hymns have a positive emotional quality for those saying the goodbyes.

My Last Song has a list of 20 hymns suitable for a funeral, and at least one will be a fave five of mine…I think.