STAINLESS steel caskets which will enable relatives or friends to keep their loved one's ashes in the back garden are being marketed nationally by a North Yorkshire firm.

The caskets, developed by Harrogate Caskets, a subsidiary of Northern Stainless Fabrications, are said to "last forever" and are designed to sit proud of the ground.

Any remains which are interred need special permission from the Home Office before they can be moved, but this casket can be moved if the living relative decides to move house.

Business Link North Yorkshire has been helping Trisha Rogers, who runs Northern Stainless Fabrications with her husband, Neil, to produce sales and marketing literature. Already she has made them available through mail order, but she is now also hoping to supply them nationally through funeral directors.

The casket was Trisha's idea. She said: "My father was a rugby fan and after he died I scattered his ashes on his favourite rugby ground.

"However, a few years later it was turned into a housing estate which brought home to me how little control we really have over what happens to cremated remains. It was the seed of this idea."

The caskets could be placed in a favourite spot in the mourner's garden where they can be tended and visited without having to travel."