A FARMER who fulfilled his life ambition to own a tractor has been given a “fitting send-off”.

Chris Latter’s coffin was towed behind his beloved tractor from Newhaven to Downs Crematorium, Brighton, on Monday.

Chris’s mother Caroline Dean paid tribute to her son, who was 28. She said: “Chris was just lovely. He’d do anything for anybody. He adored farming and we all decided we had to involve tractors somehow.

“The funeral directors at Newhaven Co-op Funeralcare have been so understanding.

“They just said: ‘Do whatever you want.’

“They didn’t at any point say ‘Oh God, we can’t do that’. They just went with it.”

Chris’s sister Laura Dean said: “We didn’t deem it fit to take him away in a hearse. His life revolved around farming and he loved his tractor. Chris started going out and working on farms when he was 14. He studied agriculture at Plumpton College and from an early age his goal in life was to own a tractor.

Laura: “When he got hold of one, he went out and about in it all the time.

“He was so funny. He had a great sense of humour and he was always laughing. He always had a big smile on his face in his tractor.

“We had no idea what he was going through. In the end, he took his own life. The tribute on Monday was perfect. We decorated the trailer with flowers and hay bales and everyone waited for us to pass.”

Laura said it was easier than she expected to arrange the unusual journey.

“There weren’t any practical difficulties, it was easy. We just borrowed a trailer and painted it to match the tractor. The whole family came together. It was a great send-off.”

Relatives said the service had been absolutely packed. Laura said: “The tractor was something of a head-turner.”

There have been several other unorthodox send-offs in Sussex this year. Relatives have settled on unusual but fitting ways to say goodbye to loved ones.

In September, friends and family gathered at Devil’s Dyke to bid farewell to “kindly, feisty” 92-year-old great-grandmother Margaret Riant. Her ashes were fired more than 300 feet into the night sky as part of a moving firework display.

After the death of teenage motorbike-lover Parys Lapper in August, hundreds of motorcyclists turned out to pay their respects. The 19-year-old was the son of artist Alison Lapper, who became famous as the subject of a marble statue on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. The bikes rode from Shoreham to Worthing Crematorium to celebrate his life.