The petitioners sought a faculty for the erection of a headstone over the grave of their father, the inscription on which contained the phrases ‘it's only rock and roll’ and ‘finally fell off his perch’. The deceased had been involved in popular music throughout his life and was something of an eccentric character locally. The chancellor observed that churchyard inscriptions celebrating the individuality and diversity of the human character were to be encouraged, but that such inscriptions should be consistent with orthodox Christian belief. In refusing the faculty, the chancellor held that the former phrase amounted to a trivialising of God's precious gift of life or the ending of that gift and that the latter phrase crossed the line beyond quirkiness and humour into undue flippancy and irreverence. [RA]