From Mrs Elaine Bishop
Sir, - My mother-in-law, who came from an old Devon farming
family who have lived in the same house for three-and-a-half
centuries, used to say, when reporting a death in the village:
"So-and-So's gone on" (Comment, 15
August; Letters, 22 and
29 August). Besides this, every evening, when she rose from her
chair to get ready for bed, she would say: "I'm going on." She
awoke each morning refreshed and invigorated.
The use of the same phrase for sleep and for a death referred to
the sleep of Christians in death, from which they will rise on the
morning of resurrection. Not a sad euphemism, but a statement of
Christian truth and hope.
ELAINE BISHOP
188B Orchard Street
Chichester PO19 1DE