AT FIRST it might sound odd, macabre, and even disrespectful.

Laying our loved ones to rest is something most of us avoid thinking about – and the ritual is so ingrained in our culture that any deviation from accepted conventions are often met with shock and horror.

But there is actually very little to stop you from burying your relatives in your back garden.

New Forest employment lawyer John Wright hit the headlines this week for exactly that reason.

Having nursed his mother through the last 10 years of her life before she died at the very respectable age of 101, he knew that sooner or later the time would come when he would have to make the funeral arrangements.

But on researching costs he was shocked to learn that the price of arranging the funeral had gone up from £4,000 just before Christmas to £5,300 in less than six months.

So he set about looking at alternatives – including storing her body in a fridge he would buy specially until the grave in his New Forest back garden was ready.

John, 71, said: “It’s amazingly flexible. It’s technically possible – if I wanted to I could. You don’t need planning permission.

“But it’s outrage more than shock. You don’t mind paying a fair price but one chap had been quoted £17,000 – the funeral directors can just be greedy.

“A lot of people think about it but don’t want to talk about it and it affects so many people.”

And it’s not a shortage of cash that was stopping him from paying – his mother, Lady Margaret Johnson, was wife to a former high court judge, while John himself still works as an employment lawyer.

He said: “I can afford to do it but it’s being blackmailed by these funeral companies – they’ve got you over a barrel.

"It’s like being broken down in the desert and someone offers you a bottle of water but they’re going to charge you a thousand pounds for it.

"You have to take it.”

Advice on the Association of Natural Burial Grounds website states that the cost of a funeral has risen dramatically in recent years, but that people on low incomes or benefits may be eligible for a funeral payment from the government’s social fund, which covers “burial or cremation fees, certain other expenses and up to £700 for other expenses such as funeral director fees, a coffin or flowers.”

You may also be able to get bereavement payment, which is currently a tax-free one-off lump payment of £2,000.

But if you want to reduce on costs by burying somebody yourself without using a funeral director, you are entitled to do so, as long as you stick to some rules.

You can bury a body wherever you like – as long as you have the permission of the person who owns the freehold of the land, and that there are no restrictions attached to the title deeds of the land or registration of the property.

And you must avoid the course of water – burials must take place at least 10 metres from any dry ditch or field drain, at least 30 metres from any spring or running or standing water and at least 50 metres from any well, borehole or spring that supplies water for any use.

The person doing the burying must also obtain a certificate of authority for burial, make a register and keep it safe, and return the slip at the bottom to the Registrar of Births and Deaths within 96 hours.

Planning permission is not required unless you want to erect a memorial.

A spokesman for the National Association of Funeral Directors said: “For a funeral to be a personal and meaningful farewell it does not need to cost a lot.

The simplest of touches can make a funeral very personal.

"In our experience, these are often the touches that cost very little – if anything.

"It might be a special piece of music, donations to a particular charity, a colour theme, a cherished item placed in the coffin or something more unusual.

“People can make choices about what they want to spend on a funeral director’s services and a good funeral director will help them work within their budget.

"NAFD members are required to operate with absolute transparency and it’s not in their interests to encourage people to spend more than they can afford.

"If a funeral director oversells they risk ending up with unpaid debts as they are the only consumer service left to essentially offer unsecured credit.

“Funeral costs are rising for several reasons.

"One leading challenge is the rising cost of third-party charges such as funeral and burial costs.

"Funeral directors’ fees have also risen (on average 1.8 per cent in the year to October 2015), partly to accommodate annual rises in the cost of operating high street premises, employment, fleet and equipment.

“However, in the main, the invoice payable to a funeral director has risen because a funeral is a more comprehensive life event than perhaps it once was.

“There is now a huge number of ways to personalise a funeral to the person who has died, all leading to funerals becoming more elaborate events that celebrate the end of a life as well as say farewell.

"This all leads to increased costs.”

John’s mum, the late Lady Margaret Johnson, had asked for a cremation, but John was concerned that the ashes wouldn’t get back to him.

“There’s always the doubt that you won’t get the ashes back – they can do tracing but there’s a chance they might get lost,” he said, adding that a burial feels “more natural”.

“And I haven’t got any family so eventually when the house clearers come in they could throw the ashes out.”

So instead of burying his mum in the back garden of his Ashley home, John has opted for two plots at the Cooperative-owned Hinton Park in Dorset, a woodland burial ground where there is “a focus on preserving the natural beauty of the woodland environment and encouraging native wildlife and flowers.”

“I really wanted somewhere where I could go and where she could still be there – to still have a link.

"I find the idea of seeing her go behind a curtain very scary and I don’t want a tombstone.

"We were so close. She had a lovely smile. She was just such a nice person.”