Archive: October 2010

What’s the youth of them?

5 October 2010
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: funeral directors

First it was young women in the dismal trade who grabbed the prurient gaze of the media — that intriguing juxtaposition of beauty and beastliness, fragrance and foetor; the tantalising question: What makes a nice girl want to hang out with corpses? It makes for good photos. Slim young black-clad cane-wielding lovelies can induce a certain frisson in men who have been naughty boys. Silly stuff.

Now, any young deathworker is good for a few column inches, even plain males, and the hunt is on for the youngest. “Is,” asks This Is Leicestershire, “this Leicestershire teenager UK’s youngest undertaker?” At but seventeen, and only just out of short trousers,  George Simnett (above) is their challenger for the title.  Why does George want to be an undertaker? “‘Even when I went to family funerals as a little boy, I used to see undertakers looking so smart and dignified and think to myself “I’d like to do that. That could be me.”‘ He adds: ‘”A lot of the job is about being caring and understanding with people who are in a very difficult emotional place. That’s the part I love because it’s so satisfying when you get it right.”‘ He seems to have what it takes. His heart is clearly in the right place.

Does it matter what his age is?

Talking of juxtapositions, The Daily Mail reports the funeral of Des Young, legendary JCB operator, who was carried to his funeral on the forks of a JCB. There’s a photo (copyrighted so I daren’t pinch it) showing the funeral director ‘paging’ the JCB. Delightfully anomalous to my eye. To yours, quite possibly, smart and dignified.

Variants, please

4 October 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Humour

There’s quite a good joke here — it must be an old one but I’ve not come across it before — in this week’s Spectator by Robin Oakley. It goes:

Asked why he had sent a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt, a friend at the funeral of the man who had drowned replied, “It’s what he would have wanted.”

There must be an infinite number of variants on this. What’s yours?

One to see

4 October 2010
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death, funerals in other cultures

There’s an exhibition on at Compton Verney, 13 November til 12 December, entitled Kurt Tong: In Case it Rains in Heaven. It’s a photographic celebration of the Chinese custom of burning paper consumer goods of all sorts — clothes, cars, iPods — in order to provide for the dead person in the afterlife. It’s a custom that probably makes little intuitive sense to anyone not brought up in the tradition, by which I only mean that it makes little intuitive sense to me.

As well as being a lovely place with a very good restaurant and a tradition of excellent exhibitions, Compton Verney is home to the largest single piece of stone ever taken from the Isle of Portland. It’s a boulder 5 metres high and weighs 100 tonnes. Its installation was the inspiration of artist John Frankland. They had a heck of a job getting it off the island, I remember it well, and having got it to its destination the best name Mr Frankland could find for it was ‘Untitled’, which sounds a bit like artspeak for ‘Er…”

I digress. If you’d like a foretaste of Tong’s snaps, have a look here.

It won’t make you dead

1 October 2010
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral customs, Good books, Humour, onlime memorial sites, pre-need plans

Gail Rubin is a writer and blogger in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve just looked up Albuquerque on google maps. It’s a long way from a decent beach.

Gail has written a book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, which will be published at the end of this month. She also does some outreach work for an excellent funeral planning website, Funeralwise.com. It’s full of good advice; it’s well written and intelligent.

I’ve ordered her book already, and I urge you to do the same. Here’s what Gail says about it:

“Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead – and your family will benefit from the conversation. A Good Goodbye provides the information, inspiration and tools to plan and implement creative, meaningful and memorable end-of-life rituals for people, and their pets, too.”

Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council, says: “Gail Rubin takes on society’s last taboo in a readable, practical manner with a light touch. It’s a great read for anyone who isn’t sure about this ‘death thing’ and how to best prepare for it.”

I’m looking forward to getting my copy. You can order yours here.

When Gail was in college thirty years ago, in an enterprise which prefigured her later immersion in the logistics of mortality, she made the short spoof  (above) of gloomy old Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal. It made me chuckle and I hope it has the same effect on you.

Happy tail

1 October 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral directors, Humour

Charming story here from Australia about funeral director John Hopkins who brings his dog Finbarr to work every day.

“He’s a great icebreaker,” John said. “Families come in here not knowing what to expect.

“They often haven’t dealt with a funeral home before and they’re apprehensive.

“He gives them a lick and will lie at their feet and start snoring – it makes them feel more relaxed.”

John enjoys telling the story of the time ‘Fin’ was asked to lead a funeral procession and ride in the hearse to a funeral by a family.

And where do you suppose the good Mr Hopkins was born? Why, Wagga Wagga!

The Good Funeral Guide
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