Meet the makers of this Irn-Bru themed coffin from Edinburgh

Death and funerals aren’t usually a topic of mirth, but an image of a coffin shared to Twitter has been tickling ribs.

BBC journalist Nick Eardley shared the picture, which shows an unusual coffin from Edinburgh – that’s Irn-Bru themed.

The weird and wonderful coffin from Go As You Please funerals has gone viral, but its makers say it’s not as strange as you might think.

“Personalised requests are very common actually,” Go As You Please owner Jason Ridley, 47, told the Press Association.

“We’re all different, it’s not the Victorian era, it’s about celebrating somebody’s life and everybody’s different so why not portray it?

“It shows this is ‘John Smith’ in this coffin, because a blank coffin it could be anyone in there.

“Some of them have their family’s tartan, or they might be a big football fan and want their team’s logo on their coffin.

“We did a Tardis coffin for a big Doctor Who fan. It was very personal and I think the whole family really appreciated it. It’s all about openness and honesty.”

Jason admits the Irn-Bru coffin hasn’t been requested by a customer yet, but he’s convinced that will change soon.

“It’s something we came up with because we try to change our displays regularly,” said Jason, who is originally from Newcastle.

“Irn-Bru was going through a big recipe change and the whole of Scotland was in mourning for it, so we thought why not do an Irn-Bru coffin?

“I think at some point in the future there definitely will be someone buried in an Irn-Bru one because so many people have said to us ‘that’s the one for me’.”

The Irn-Bru coffin hit headlines six months ago before Nick’s tweet brought it back into the spotlight.

Jason notes that despite the fame their company still works on lots of traditional funerals, but he believes times are changing.

“Obviously death doesn’t matter how old you are, but there tend to be more funerals for older people than young,” said Jason. “Over the next few years I can see an Irn-Bru one happening as younger generations pass away.

“As the years roll on we’ll see more and more of these personalised funerals.”