Funeral director Paul Cuthell stood at the desolate graveside and said a few prayers for the 90-year-old Covid-19 victim who had just been laid to rest.
Paul had buried the man's wife 20 years earlier and the deceased's only living relatives were two cousins in their 70s who couldn't make the burial because they were self-isolating.
“It was heart-rending,” said Paul, who runs a business in central Scotland.
“The only people in attendance were myself, a colleague and three cemetery staff. I felt I couldn't walk away without saying a few words and a prayer in thanks for his life.”
Three hundred and fifty miles away in Leicestershire two hearses reverse into a driveway of a house on a quiet street.
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It's the closest the family of a father and son are able to get to say their final farewells before a funeral.
This is the landscape of funerals in the era of Covid-19, with families denied the simplest of traditions.
Churches have shut their doors, florists are closed, limousines are banned due to social distancing and crematoriums and graveyards have limited mourners to between 10 and 15 people.
Many services are played out on zoom or other internet sites.
For those who do gather to pay their respects, the two-metre rule means families who live in different households are unable to physically comfort those left behind. Grandchildren, parents and children are barred from throwing their arms around those closest to them in shared grief.
In the case of Covid-19 victims, most funeral homes dare not risk infection by embalming the dead and their coffins are shut tight within hours to prevent any risk of spread. It means relatives are often unable to view their bodies.
Families of those who have died by other means are still able to see and touch their loved ones at funeral home Chapel of Rests – but are given strict allotted times to ensure they don't come into contact with others.
Ashes are left on doorsteps with funeral staff standing back from front doors.
The tragedy of Covid has heaped pain on families already in mourning, but funeral home staff are comforting relatives with small acts of kindness, from taking electronic fingerprints of loved ones which can be turned into jewellery to placing outfits on top of Covid victim's bodies before closing coffin lids.
Last month Jenny Gilbert-Trigg, who runs AJ Adkinson and Son in Leicestershire, helped organise the burial of a father and son who both lost their lives to coronavirus within days.
She said: “The father was in his 80s and the son in his 50s. The grandson told me the family didn't know what to do with themselves, that their whole lives had been ripped out from beneath them.
“The family were Hindu and the religion requires a ritual washing of the body. But the family were denied this because the men died of Covid.
“We were able to lay out clothes anatomically inside the coffin and put in items the family requested. On the day of the service we reversed the funeral cars up the drive of their home so the whole family could say their prayers together from their doorstep.
“Wherever we can, we take a route past people's homes and neighbourhoods so people can stand on the street and pay their respects.
“Never before have little gestures meant so much to families. In the past people might have come into the premises and done their loved one's make-up or hair. Now they have to send photographs which we work from.
“In Covid cases we might spray a favourite perfume or aftershave inside the casket and lightly on the outside so even if mourners can not see their loved ones they can smell some essence of them during viewings. Smells can provoke such powerful emotions.
“We also have a fingerprint reader that records the prints of relatives if families want to make pieces of jewellery with them.
“We do everything we can so this horrible virus doesn't stand in the way of people saying goodbye to those they are close to.”
Funeral directors say business has increased by an average 30 per cent this April compared to last year.
They have not yet been overwhelmed by the number of funerals as predicted at the start of the crisis - but have been engulfed by their own emotions.
Jeremy Field operates one of few companies still carrying out embalming on coronavirus victims, with staff wearing full personal protective equipment including goggles, masks, aprons, gloves and visors.
Jeremy, who runs 30 branches in south east England, also allows family to see loved ones, but advises against touching them.
He said: “We had a double funeral for a husband and wife, which wasn't Covid related, and persuaded the crematorium to allow 20 mourners, rather than 10, the number set by most venues.
“We have seen the phenomenon of unwitnessed funerals because some families feel that, if they can't have everyone, they would rather have no-one at all, while others are self-isolating and feel they should have the funeral sooner than later.
“Most of these people are planning memorials further down the line, but I worry that once that burial or cremation has taken place, and that person is no longer in your life, will the imperative still exist to have that moment in time? What affect that might have on families?
“We are trying as hard as we can to do what we can. For instance we had one young man who wanted to talk to our embalmer about specific instructions for his mother and we arranged a zoom call.
“The hardest thing for us to witness is the social distancing. You see children desperately trying to keep their hands at their side when, with every ounce of their humanity, they just want to give their widowed parent a hug.”
Funeral director Abi Pattenden, whose company serves Sussex and Surrey, are not embalming people who died of Covid-19, but still allow families to visit the deceased in the premises if they are “in a condition which permits it.”
She has seen a rise in the number of families placing items in coffins over the past two months.
Abi said: “When it was chilly a few weeks ago we were being asked to bury people with blankets. We've had similar requests in the past but I think families are trying to keep that connection. We are also being asked to place in more photographs and teddy bears.”
David Barrington, who operates in Liverpool with wife Claire, helped comfort a woman who lost her 28-year-old son to cancer in a city hospital .
Even although the death was not related to Covid the family could not escape the impact of the pandemic.
The mother washed her son's body at the funeral home but knew she would have to self-isolate on her return to the Isle of Man before she could lay her son to rest.
David said: “We also had a funeral of an African man a few weeks ago and his brother asked us to take a picture of the man lying at rest which was unusual but, in the circumstances, it didn't seem right to refuse.
“But there are moments of light, when neighbours stand on the street and applaud the hearse as it goes past. Its' left my wife Claire in tears at times.”
For Paul Cuthell, who felt compelled to say a prayer at the graveside in Scotland, Covid-19 has hit close to home.
His next door neighbour lost her mother to coronavirus and one of his staff has gone into isolation after losing his mother, who now lies at the funeral home where he works.
Paul said: “His mum took a bad fall. As she went into the ambulance she told her son 'if I don’t see you again, remember I love you'.
"The next day she took a turn for the worse and our staff member borrowed some PPE to go and see her in hospital before she died.
“He now has to isolate for 14 days because he's been in a hospital environment and his mum is with us. He's asked me to look after his mum as if she was my own.
“Our family have been funeral directors for 115 years and in our lifetime never expected to see and make some of the decisions we have to make today. It's a sobering time full of heartbreak.”
The National Association of Funeral Directors is asking the public to show their support for families at this time by bowing their heads, gently applauding or simply pausing when a hearse passes them.
