PLEASE may I have the right to reply to Martin Sheppard and Julia M Raven.

I believe Mr Sheppard is under the misapprehension that we had a church service for my husband's funeral (Letters, January 17). Wrong, we went straight to the crematorium.

As for Mrs Raven (Letters, January 20), how dare she call me a hypocrite when she doesn't even know me.

My husband worked for an undertaker. He came into contact with lots of clergymen and women.

One was a canon from the Minster who, when he was a lowly vicar, crossed our paths for 20-some years.

He christened my granddaughter and a nephew. He also ministered to the sick at the district hospital and when my husband had had a heart attack he called into his ward to say hello.

The fact that I do not even know my local vicar's name ruled him out. How could he stand up and speak about my husband when he didn't know him from Adam?

I've been to two funerals where the vicar has got the name of the dead person wrong and thus upset relatives.

Mrs M Dale,

Highthorn Road, York.

Updated: 11:47 Friday, January 28, 2005