8 October 2009 – The Good Funeral Guide

WHEN I’M 64 – music for Babyboomer Funerals

Simon Smith of green fuse contemporary funerals had a piece published in October’s Funeral Service Journal, the undertakers’ trade journal, which, I feared, had something of a flower of the desert about it. Despite the best efforts of its excellent editor, Brian Parsons, funeral directors are not great readers, nor are they great writers.

I asked Simon if I might put what he had written before more fertile eyes. He agreed. Here it is:

The earliest babyboomers are now 64, and many

are prepared to think about funerals, sweeping

away the 20th Century taboo with regard to

death. If you are one of them, one thing you

probably know is that you don’t want a Victorian

style funeral, with solemn black, a vicar and

Abide With Me. What you’ll want is something

different. And the music definitely must be

different, to reflect your own particular taste.

I always advise that the best music to play at a

funeral is the music the person who has died

loved, and which family and friends associate

with them. One lady in her sixties came into

Showaddywaddy’s Under The Moon Of Love and

went out to Abba’s I Have A Dream, another had

Blue Hawaii by Elvis. One man had his heartthrob

Doris Day singing The Deadwood Stage

(“Whipcrackaway!”) at the end of the ceremony.

I love music and I have studied over three

hundred songs for lyrics, style and tempo, many

of which have actually been played at funerals

and some of which are my own personal choices,

and have come up with a Babyboomer Top 20

(not in any particular order):

Read the rest of Simon’s piece here.

Funeralcare screwupdate

THE SCENE: An undertaker’s premises in a shopping centre in the middle of a council estate on the outskirts of Hull. ENTER three ten year-old children…

Before we resume the narrative, consider for a moment what a ten year-old is. It is a half-size version of an adult. It speaks as a child. It understands as a child. It thinks as a child. It looks like a child. Dammit, it is a child.

The children ask if they can see the body of Daniel Trott, a 22 year-old who died when his motorbike collided with a lamppost. They are, they explain, friends of Daniel. The undertaker nods and ushers them into the chapel of rest.

Picture the scene.

What happened next? The little lads later bumped into Daniel’s brother and told them all about it. Daniel’s brother told his Mum. His Mum hit the roof. She had expressly told the undertaker that no one was to visit Daniel except those she authorised. The undertaker had helpfully given her business cards so that these people could identify themselves when they arrived. A good system, but not, it seems, foolproof.

A spokeswoman for The Co-operative Funeralcare, said: “Our member of staff acted in good faith, believing the boys, who explained they were friends of the deceased, had been given permission by the deceased’s mother. This was an error, for which we have apologised to the family.”

Hmnn. Read the account in the Hull Daily Mail here.