Mick’s going out with a proper bang

ASHES TO BE FIRED INTO SKY USING FIREWORKS

Friends will be able to say farewell to Mick Finnikin when his ashes are spread by fireworks. A FUN-LOVING man’s last wish to “go out with a bang” will be fulfilled next month – when his ashes are sent rocketing into the sky in fireworks.

Friends of Mick Finnikin, of Ashbourne, who died of a heart attack in February last year, say he was a “very special character” with a wicked sense of humour and a sharp wit and, the 68-year-old’s desire for an unusual final journey was “typical of him”.

The sky-high send-off has been arranged by his close friend Carolyn Brown, who was one of only a few people who made it to his cremation last year after heavy snow made it difficult for many of his friends to get to it.

She said finding a firework company capable of launching ashes, and obtaining permission from Derbyshire Dales District Council, had taken nearly a year but she is looking forward to giving all his friends a chance to pay their last respects.

She said: “He was a hell of a character, he was unique. They broke the mould when they made him.

“He’d got a very, very good sense of humour. Very much an Ashbourne man, he played Shrovetide all his life and he was a very straightforward, honest and conscientious man.

“He was well known and well loved and a lot of the people who wanted to come to his funeral couldn’t do so at the time, so I wanted this to be a very public thing so that a lot of the people who missed out can now come and celebrate his life.

“We’d talked about this many times, because he had been very poorly a few times in his life.

“He’d read somewhere about ashes being sent up in a firework and he said this is what he wanted, to go out with a bang.”

Such was his sense of humour that he also asked Carolyn if the 1960s novelty song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Ha” could be played at his service, as well as the Shrovetide song.

Carolyn, who met him while working behind the bar at The Horns in Victoria Square, said Mick had an unusual sense of humour: “He could always make you laugh when you were miserable, he’d always say something to cheer you up,” she said. “You’d fall about laughing with him.”

Born into a farming family, Mick worked as a builder and lived in Cokayne Avenue but he was well travelled and once ate a McDonald’s meal on the Great Wall of China – because he thought it would be “different”.

Carolyn said he also once did a nude bungee jump in Australia and “married” a tree in India.

Mick’s final tribute is set to take place from 7pm on Wednesday, February 6, at Ashbourne Recreation Ground.