26 March 2010 – The Good Funeral Guide

Simon Smith’s way-out playlist

It’s got to be a baby boomer thing, has it, this new wave of funeral directors whose most distinguishing characteristic is that they are nothing like (old school) funeral directors? Not necessarily. I can think of some who have not come fresh to funeral directing in middle age. This is not exclusively a counter-culture thing. These new funeral directors are radical, for sure, but not in an angry or iconoclastic way. They have not spurned funerary traditions, they have simply left them standing. They are thoughtful and intelligent. And for those people who do not want a full-on religious funeral, they join up the care of the body of the person who’s died to the creation of their farewell ceremony; they can do both. There is immense value in that – especially to baby boomers, who have reinvented more or less everything they have encountered throughout their lives, and now, with their parents and not a few of them standing on the brink of eternity, are beginning to give to death culture the sort of makeover they once gave to youth culture.

Two such new-wave funeral directors are Simon Smith and Jane Morrell of green fuse contemporary funerals. They have a funeral shop in Totnes where people drop in and chat about funerals. I’m always interested to know what these two are thinking. So when I heard that Simon had been given an hour slot on the Carl Muson Show on Exeter’s Phonic FM I just had to find out what he’d said. By dint of employing those devious and menacing investigative ploys which have made the Good Funeral Guide the impressively terrifying consumer resource it has become, I managed to obtain a CD of the show by the underhand expedient of asking Simon nicely to send me a copy, which, because he’s the most agreeable of fellows, he was kind enough to do.

The show centres on Simon’s playlist of what he reckons to be really good songs to play at a funeral – “the ones I want to introduce others to, not the most popular.” The songs are interspersed by chat.

The chat covers all manner of thought-provoking areas. The absence of rules around funerals – the fact that there are hardly any (so long as you do not outrage public decency). The importance of families participating “to the extent that they can … we see ourselves as permission givers.” The suggestibility of the newly bereaved, and the importance of “offering them choices, not channelling them.” The way that a death alters status within a family, a community, a workplace. The way it alters titles, too – a daughter becomes an orphan, a husband a widower.

Reflecting on his work as a celebrant, Simon says, “We don’t quite meet a lot of very interesting and fascinating people.” It reminded me of something Garrison Keillor once said: “They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”

Considering the number of people who are not signed up to a faith group, whether religious or atheistic, Simon reckons that two-thirds of the population is currently not being catered for.

He talks about the denialist effect of two world wars on attitudes to death (everyone had had enough of it) and attitudes to dead bodies (ditto). He talks about the importance of death being “part of life, not tidied away,” and the value of spending time with someone who’s died: “The funeral doesn’t pass in such a blur if people have spent time with the body.”

He concludes with a wonderful quote: “We’re always standing on the edge of loss trying to retrieve human meaning from something that’s precious that has gone.”

Here is Simon’s playlist. Open Spotify now and type in the following:

You’ve Got A Friend – James Taylor

Spirit In The Sky – Norman Greenbaum

Amazing Grace – Elvis Presley (“People start swaying to that.”)

You’re The First, The Last, My Everything – Barry White

My Sweet Lord – George Harrison

Samba Pa Ti – Santana

Celebrancy opportunity

Here is a possibly inspiring tale from a celebrant in the south-east. She has asked me to withhold her name and email address because she simply won’t have time to correspond if lots of people want to contact her.

Hi Charles

You have quite often written about celebrants and recently people who do not want a funeral and I thought you might like to know my news. I have been trying to widen my celebrancy base for some time, offering ceremonies for all the life events I can think of even a Coming out of Prison ceremony! Uptake has been abit slow though and as I was wondering how I could make a living as a fulltime celebrant it suddenly came to me when I was doing a funeral ceremony in the crem a about 8 months ago, a sudden out of the box leap of the imagination. This is how it happened, I was in the middle of a poem I have read so many times I can do it from memory, I was looking at the mourners doing my best to make eye contact and put across the meaning of the poem and as so often happens I was getting nothing back except for rather empty stares from rather hollow eyes, you know what I mean I’m sure!! At first I felt a bit miffed to put it frankly. I thought, “come on people I’m doing all the work here!!!” and then it struck me, THESE PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE HERE!! I went on thinking and pondering about this in the days afterwards. I pondered that as a celebrant what we try to do is to take all of the burden off of our families that we possibly can, what with all their grief that they have to struggle to contend with, this is where we as celebrants and funeral directors come in, make it as easy for them as we possibly can, lift the burden. “All you have to do is be there!” is something I often say to familys beforehand about the funeral because their so not looking forward to it. Infact so many don’t want to be there actually even though they want their loved one to have a good send off so, and this is my BIG NEWS, now I explore this with familys gently and tell them “you don’t have to be there if you don’t want you know, I’ll do it all” and if they want arrange for photo’s to be taken, audio recording, even a video, I can fix that for them. Of course most people feel after quite a big struggle they ought to go along and they do come but some decide not, its a weight off their mind and they are very grateful knowing that everything is going to be done with dignity and they will have a momento of the event of their choice. This does not I emphasise go down at all well with some of my Funeral Directors!! But I remind them that choice is everything these days isn’t it?!!

Again thinking outside the envelope (my big strength!) from this I thought about all those people that don’t just find funerals difficult they find looking after their elderly rellies difficult especially if their in a care home and perhaps a bit lacking in faculties. They dread that weekly visit!! So now I offer a service to these families, it goes like this. We have a weekly phone chat and they tell me all the news, they also give me a shopping list of everything I need to take up. I go up to the care home and I sit with the old person and tell them all the news slowly in their own time often using photo’s to link the news item to the person it applies to. The old folk really appreciate I think having someone talk to them who has time and is a bridge to their family, someone who doesn’t feel awkward and itchy to go, my professional detachment kicks in, we develop a real bond. Well two weeks ago one of my oldies died, a lady and here’s my big news, on Tuesday we had her funeral and the family entrusted everything to me, it was a huge privilege and gesture of trust, I was up there at the crem on my own representing them, just me and old Mum and it made such a difference actually knowing the deceased for once, it felt really lovely and I spoke some of the words to her and some to a video camera which the family now has as a momento. The family were so grateful and we all though we had done Mum proud.

So there we are, here’s a thought for all you celebrants out there, if you want to offer a joined up service to people consider offering this service, I can’t tell you want a difference it makes doing a funeral for someone you actually know!!

NOTE: This is satirical fiction. It was composed by the author in an uncharacteristically sardonic mood. He deeply regrets, if you have given the above any credence whatever, that we should have come to this.