Author: Charles

No death, please, we’re British

6 August 2012
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, coffins

Here’s one of those nimby stories that cause funeral directors such headaches. The setting is suburban Horsham, Sussex.

A mother who recently cured her phobia of coffins has shared her fears about the establishment of a funeral directors near her home. Katie Lee, 37, said she was ‘gob smacked’ by ‘inconsiderate’ signs ‘suddenly’ erected on the old carpet shop on the corner of Rusper Road and Agate Lane, Horsham, informing residents that it will soon become a funeral directors.

Katy Lee said she was “physically sick” after learning the parlour was opening in her street. The 37-year-old has missed friend’s funerals because of her taphophobia, which stems from when her father was buried. She spent hundreds of pounds tackling it through therapy but said she was not prepared to see if she was fully over her fear by actually seeing a coffin. “I told my husband about it. I said, ‘we’ve got to move’ and we’ve just done up the house. But he said no. I can’t move.”

Dignity area manager Matthew Keysell … pointed out that … the transfer of any coffin from the hearse to the building would be done in under 30 seconds.

Sources: West Sussex County Times and The Argus

The birds and the FDs

6 August 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

A story that’s been doing the rounds of local newspapers has made it to today’s Telegraph. Dear reader, what is it about this tale of alleged mundane office sexual shenanigans which elevates it to the status of juicy newsworthiness?

Skye Knight, 38, alleged that Billy Shannon, an embalmer, molested her after grabbing hold of her by her ponytail at Highfield Funeral Service, Huddersfield, West Yorks. She fled the cellar when Mr Shannon tripped on his apron, it was claimed.

Two weeks after the incident Mrs Knight was warned about her “flirtatious” behaviour, low-cut tops and short skirts.

The tribunal heard claims that Mrs Knight had embarked on an affair with Clive Pearson, of Marsden-based Pearson Funeral Service … the pair were seen in one of the company’s vehicles sent to collect a body from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

There’s more here. The case has been settled out of court. 

Funeral for a friend

6 August 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Humanists

The following is by Matthew Parris in his Times column (£). A nice little snapshot of a typical modern British funeral.

I went on Friday to the funeral of my dear and (very) old friend Barbara Carrington, my landlady once. It was a humanist funeral: beautiful, simple, unsentimental, with the reader not sheepishly overstating, as vicars sometimes do, her acquaintance with the deceased, but instead reading a story of Barbara’s life, as recounted by family and friends. Barbara always said that I’d be late for my own funeral and I was nearly late for hers, overtaking, as I raced over Chesterfield Moor, a pale grey hearse. Hers? Surely not.

Not. The coffin was already there as I arrived in the nick of time. But as I left, still rushing to finish my Saturday column, that pale grey hearse drew up. Doubtless for the next funeral, but I had the momentary and illogical feeling that I had just broken the equivalent of the sound barrier, racing half an hour ahead of time itself, overtaking the deceased on the way to her own funeral.

View from the Westboro Baptist Church

6 August 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

 

Fred Phelps Jr offers his interpretation of the shootings at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Tweeted on August 5th at 6.40 pm.

 

Goodbye to you my trusted friend

6 August 2012
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: funeral music, music

Posted by Richard Rawlinson, our funeral music correspondent.

It’s 1974, there are three day weeks in Britain due to fuel shortages, and, across the Pond, President Richard Nixon is resigning over the Watergate scandal. And the radio soundtrack to these troubled times includes some of the cheesiest treatments of death in pop history: Gilbert O’Sulivan’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’ (above) and (below) Paper Lace’s ‘Billy, Don’t be a Hero’:

Then we come to the nadir of them all, Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons in the Sun’. ‘We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun/But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time,” croons Jacks, as he appears to say goodbye in preparation for death by ‘too much wine and too much song’. I concur with the latter.

In fact, the maudlin hit has more credible, ‘Continental Cool’ roots, its original being Jacques Brel’s 1961 release, Le Moribund:

And amazingly, Kurt Cobain also recorded a cover of the Jacks version with Nirvana in the 1990s, which has added resonance as a suicide note from the junkie grunge star:

But if civil celebs out there ever get to play a rendition of ‘Seasons in Sun’ on the crem sound system, I do hope it’s this distinctly upbeat version by campy Cali-punk cover band, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Somehow, it’s the most moving of the lot:

I hated my brother. When he died, all I felt was happiness…

4 August 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, Children, Etiquette, Grief

Liz Hodgkinson writing in The Daily Mail 31 July 2012

The news came as a shock, yes, but it didn’t provoke tears, or even any sense of grief. I’d just heard from my niece that my brother Richard had died of a heart attack, aged 62, following an apparently minor operation. And all I felt was a surge of happiness and relief.

That day, five years ago, a long, dark shadow that had blighted my existence was lifted. You see, I hated my brother and he hated me to the point of pathology. So much so that we hadn’t even seen or spoken to each other for 20 years.

I imagine this sentiment will jar with many because it goes against everything we are  supposed to feel for our siblings. After all, it is meant to be the strongest and longest bond we will experience in life.

To admit such animosity is to break one of our strongest social taboos — but the feeling is far from rare, with psychologists estimating that in as many as a third of all families there is bitter hatred and rivalry between siblings.

Writer Margaret Drabble’s long estrangement from her novelist sister, Booker Prize-winner A.S  Byatt, is a case in point.

Their feud, which started at birth, is, according to Drabble, completely unresolvable, and has provoked much interest.

Ever since Cain slew Abel, stories and myths abound of siblings turning against each other.

But what does it actually feel like to hate a sibling? Well, it’s something that is always there, lying dissonant and dormant in the background. You dread the slightest contact, whether by letter, email or phone call.

In my case, before my brother stopped speaking to me altogether, he would preface any communication by saying: ‘You’re supposed to be so clever.’

Harmless at first glance, perhaps, but words designed to fill me with rage. And they achieved their goal, unerringly.

When there is hatred at this level, you can’t even pretend that person doesn’t exist, as it burns a deep and lasting hole in your psyche.

The animosity between my brother and me stems from childhood. Apparently my mother had only wanted one child, so when she became pregnant with my brother while she was still breastfeeding me, she was distraught.

He was born 18 months after me, following a very difficult birth which nearly killed our mother. Right from the start, I was the firm favourite of both parents and the question: ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?’ was often asked.

Such favouritism, I believe, is the crux of it. American psychologist Jeanne Safer’s latest book, Cain’s Legacy, explores this very phenomenon.

Writing from her own experience of being estranged from her brother since birth, she believes it is favouritism that causes such bitter sibling rivalry. ‘When this happens, it sets you up for a lifetime of strife,’ she says.

‘The bond can never quite be severed, yet the bitter hatred gets ever worse. Because it happens before you can speak, it goes far deeper than anybody ever realises and can never be healed.’

Read the whole article here

A brief history of undertakers

3 August 2012
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: funeral directors

By Richard Rawlinson

In medieval times, the word ‘undertaker’ was used vaguely for anyone undertaking a task, whether house building or funeral work. It doesn’t derive from taking the deceased six feet under but, by the 17th century, the term ‘funeral undertaker’ was being abbreviated to ‘undertaker’ and, as this association became widespread, folk in other trades stopped calling themselves ‘undertakers’. Death by association.

I’m not sure when undertakers started referring to themselves as funeral directors, but my hunch is it was in the early-20th century, or perhaps the 19th century? The title reflects the public, ceremonial role played on the big day itself, conjuring up an image of somber-suited bearers and polished hearses. It perhaps glosses over the preparation done before arriving at this stage: the embalming or ‘hygiene treatment’; the safekeeping in the Chapel of Rest or cold storage in the ‘hub’.

Then again, you expect a director to be an efficient administrator, entrusted with booking venues and celebrants, and answering individual needs. You also expect to talk business with a director, to buy their products and services. This is in stark contrast to the word ‘mortician’, someone you envisage wearing rubber gloves and performing rather unpleasant acts in a back room. Ironically, the American trade coined the word, ‘mortician’, believing it sounded less gloomy than ‘funeral director’—surely only to those who didn’t know the Latin root of ‘mort’? They also thought it had a professional ring. Exactly, it sounds rather too much like ‘physician’.

Early undertakers tended to work as builders, joiners and carpenters, skills that translated to coffin-making at times of death in the village. This was often the case even in the early 20th century. The family would inform their doctor first to certify a death, and then the local ‘layer out’—usually a woman—would help carry out the ‘last offices’, attending to the needs of both bereaved and deceased. They would call on the parish priest to perform the Last Rites, and summon the undertaker to take measurements for a bespoke coffin, made in haste from sanded and polished hardwood, and sealed inside with wax and bitumen to avoid leakage.

The undertaker would return to the house to deliver the coffin, sometimes having to remove a window as the door was too narrow. The deceased, clothed in their best nightdress or Sunday suit, would then rest in the front parlour until the funeral, usually held three or four days after death. Sweet smelling flowers were placed around the room to absorb bad odours and the undertaker would visit to check on any unpleasantness. Embalming was only performed for wealthy clients, and it wasn’t until the 1950s that Chapels of Rest became established in funeral homes.

The typical cost of a funeral in the mid-1940s was about £20, which included the making of the coffin, providing four bearers, hearse and car, church fees and grave digger. The fee of half a crown was paid to the person who performed the ‘laying out’. With the average wage being only £2.75 per week, the cost of funerals today is comparable.

   

Kicking the bucket in Swaziland

3 August 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funerals in other cultures

The Times of Swaziland is in a lather about deceaseds, feckless young men and undertakers. Terrific stuff, this.

They could care less how they lead their sorry lives. 

All they want is to get a great send-off when they ultimately kick the proverbial bucket.

It’s so discouraging.

Funeral undertakers are having the time of their lives, as a result – if you excuse the pun.

They are taking full advantage of the sad situation and making a killing – if you forgive me for using a pun yet again. 

Everyday, we are bombarded with advertisements of good funeral packages and phone numbers of the right people to call in the event you die.

You wonder if you will even be capable of making phone calls in that state. They do not care. All they want is your money, dead or alive. 

I say ‘dead or alive’ because these shysters will break everything down to you nicely, offering you attractive funeral plans for which you pay as little as E2 per day or whatever.

They are beaming those adverts to able-bodied men, women and children who still have their whole lives ahead of them. 

They want you to start planning for your funeral long before you get diabetes or are start walking around crime-ridden areas like Mbhuleni at night.

They want you to pay and pay and pay…long before you die.

When you die, they will make quick calculations and find that you had contributed at least E19 275 in total to their coffers over the years. 

Your reward? E10 000 as a lump sum for you to have a dignified funeral; well-serviced hearse to take you to the cemetery, clean-shaven and energetic young men to drive you there and set up the tent, a casket with bronze handles and more of the same. 

At the end of the day (or your life), you would have made a loss of over E9 000!

I have always had a problem with　funeral undertakers – and the people who fall for their tricks hook, line and sinker. 

But seriously…why can’t everyone concentrate on having a healthy and rewarding life? Why should we only be concerned about funerals? Is death now more important than life?

Take these young men who drive around in Golf Velocity hatch-backs, for instance. 

We all know how they struggle to keep those cars clean by taking them to the carwash every other day (they would be caught dead washing the vehicles themselves). They struggle to have enough money for petrol but are always behind the steering wheel. 

They are putting up appearances, mostly to impress those impressionable girls and good-for-nothing women. Back home, they have very empty refrigerators. They neither have pots nor plates and the only thing in their cupboards are cockroaches. 

Even though they have several children from different mothers, most still live in their parents’ houses, making you wonder where they do the nasty business of procreation.

These young men could care less how they live. They have no ambition whatsoever but when the adverts for ‘dignified funeral plans’ come on while they watch TV, they sit up straight.

Having a grand funeral is all they live for. 

That is probably why funerals have become events where folks parade the latest fashion trends, turning up in expensive suits, shiny shoes and designer-label sunshades.

Many make sure they arrive in big shiny cars. 

They hire them from car-rental companies if they have to – anything for a dignified funeral.

Four young men from my village back in the bundus were abandoned by their father at a very young age. He never cared whether they went to school or not. He did not know what they had for supper on any given day and could care less what they wore.

Their mother decided to leave for South Africa where she had relatives.

She tried hard to scrape a dignified life for her children and they grew up to be respected citizens. Then their father back home died. They did not want to go to the funeral but relatives spent tens of Emalangeni worth of airtime convincing them. 

They decided to come but chose to arrive a few hours before the actual funeral.

This meant arriving late at night to join the loud and cheerful Zionists at the vigil. Yes, I said ‘cheerful.’

When time came for the funeral procession to proceed to the graveyard, everybody was given the chance to pay their last respects by getting a glimpse of the deceased lying ‘in state.’ 

That was the cue for the four young men, who seemed to have rehearsed their next move.

They ran towards the expensive coffin and started kicking it with their Nike trainers. They kicked it on the sides, jumped on it and kicked it again. It was about to crumble when community police arrived to calm them down. The gentlemen from the well-known funeral under-taker could only watch in dismay as their dignified funeral turned into a tragic circus. 

While kicking the coffin, the man’s sons were repeatedly shouting, “You fool, you failed to take us to school but had money for such an expensive coffin?” Then you say you want a dignified funeral? Get a life!

Source

Thoughts of a funeral-goer

3 August 2012
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: Thoughts of a funeralgoer

I’m back. From the brink of death. And Lyme Regis.

It sounds dramatic but I really did think I was a goner. And Charles tells me that so too did many readers of this blog. He had several emails asking him not to kill me off. I’d like to reassure those people that Charles doesn’t have my address in East Sheen, so the chances of him being able to kill me are remote.

To the gentleman who begged him not to ‘blog-snuff Lyra’: thank you. This is a worrying thought. However, Charles says that I’m safe from being blog-snuffed as long as I keep my posts interesting.

So let’s test his mettle by considering some statistics.

The Office for National Statistics recently published their first annual ‘Subjective Well-being Results.’ Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I am in most of the categories for the highest levels of happiness!

The happiest people are female, married, live in their own properties and are between the ages of 75 and 79. I would need only to move to the Shetland Islands and be Indian to score higher! There is a downside: women are more likely to be anxious. Which is true – I’m a worrier.

The other downside wasn’t mentioned. If you’re over 75, statistically you’re more likely to be dead next week than those people who are under 75. I made that up but it must be true. On the same day that the happiness statistics were released, the ONS published the Monthly Provisional Figures on Deaths. Which did nothing to help my anxiety levels.

But I was greatly uplifted by last week’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games. It made me proud to be British – even if we are bonkers. Indeed, because we are bonkers. I gasped and smiled when Her Majesty the Queen appeared alongside James Bond. Which lady of a certain age wouldn’t die happy if she’d experienced a few moments with Daniel Craig?

Next week, if I’m still alive and I haven’t been blog-snuffed, I hope to report on a funeral – ideally the funeral of a complete stranger who has lived a long and happy life. Daisy and Barry insist on coming too so that they can look after me and make sure I don’t over-do it. They’re not keen for me to visit a natural burial ground just yet. But I’m working on it.

They’re worriers too.

Love, death and much, much verse

2 August 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral poetry, Poetry

The Purbeck Isle

What do love and death have in common? Ans: they inspire poetry. It’s where we turn when words fail.

Two pieces today. The first is freshly minted by our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson.

We do not know

We do not know when or how we shall die.
Will we even have time to say goodbye?
A deadly disease or quick accident,
In peaceful sleep or by something violent? 

We do not know where we go at the end.
Heaven, Hell, Nowhere, or does it depend?
How do we prepare for this great mystery,
What acts and beliefs define our history? 

We do not know why we love or hate so
Until we acknowledge it all has to go.
Life matters more because Death’s at the door,
Merging as one with eternity’s law. 

We do not know when or how we shall die,
May God gives us grace for our final sigh.

The second is by Jim Dolbear, was published in the Free Portland News in July and commemorates the loss with all hands of the Purbeck Isle off Portland Bill in May.

Souls of the Sea

The Purbeck Isle set sail that day
To trawl whelk, haul crabs along the way
Skipper Dave, Robert, and young Jack,
On the same day, they would be back.
Twilight came, there’s no sight, no sound,
The search now on ’til they are found.
Alas the rescue not to be,
Three more souls lost to the sea.
Now bairns alas will only see,
Pictures of dad when on mum’s knee.
A widow for her son will weep,
As angels their vigil now keep.
No husband, dad, son to hold,
We bow our heads when the bells tolled.
And pray for safety there will be,
For those that fish upon the sea.