OK, most of us wouldn't like it if undertakers were cracking one-liners as they took the coffin into the crem, but I'm interested in the way some of the more traditional sort seem to regard themselves as guardians of community propriety in the "correct" approach to grief.
It's well enough known that people who are shocked and grieving often succumb, suddenly and unexpectedly, to a fit of the giggles.
It's also quite well-known that in Wales, people get given an informal surname relating to their occupation. So if I'd run a chip shop for a year forty years ago in a small village in mid-Wales, they'd probably still call me "Gloria Chips."
The undertaker in a small town/large village down there was known, for obvious reasons, as "Gareth Box." A friend of mine had lost her dad, and the family were sitting around the front room arranging matters with Gareth Box when something gave them a fit of the giggles. Gareth Box, in full funereal fig, leaned forward and said reproachfully (you have to imagine a solemn, elderly Welsh accent at this point)
"This is not a jocular occasion."
It's surely for the family to decide what is and isn't solemn or amusing on such an occasion. Of course undertakers need to be tactful and watchful, they can't breeze in to the house full of good cheer. But it is not for them to try and establish what is proper. I wonder if some of the assumption of dignity and formality is no more than self-protection, psychic insulation?
Well, it didn't work for Gareth Box, I'm afraid. It made the family giggle all the more, and from then on, it became a family saying, at appropriate or inappropriate moments.
"This is not a jocular occasion."
My grandparents lived in North Wales - I remember the name thing. Won't quote the one shameful example that stuck in my head - let's just say that the 60's & 70's were the dark ages as far as multiculturalism went.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you're right about the gloomy formal stuff. Self-protection and that. But it always shudders on the edge of Uriah Heep territory for me....
Thanks for dropping in, Ariadne, and welcome.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, U. Heep. "I am an 'umble man and I lives in an 'umble dwelling...."
It's no different to when doctors, counsellors or accountants get it wrong. It's about making people feel comfortable and reflecting their mood.
ReplyDeletePoppy, thanks for stopping by. I'm not sure I quite agree - it isn't different in the sense that you describe, and I agree that's what it should be about, but there's something in Gareth Box and co that feels to me like a proprietorial approach to how to grieve. Light-years away from people like yourself.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm most interested in is whether or not there's any element of self-protection in it.
I can't see that self-protection comes into the equation really. IMHO it's just the total inability of the majority of funeral directors to think like Gareth Outside The Box.
ReplyDeleteDressing up in victorian regalia, marching in front of shiny black vehicles, not knowing the name of the person in the coffin, not having the service sheets or the fees, not having met the family before the ceremony, not staying in the chapel during the ceremony in favour of having a fag, not giving a damn about whether the flower cards are upside down on the tributes, that's all about self-promotion and self-elevation isn't it?
The only way I can see that self-protection comes into it is protection of the funeral director's own image. His (or her) event. His (or her) rules.
Kingfisher, thanks for your forthright views here, and this is a subject close to your heart and your professional practice, I know.
ReplyDelete"Funeral Director" is a daft name for the sort of practice you describe above, because such people don't direct the funeral (they don't even stay in the room.) They arrange the circumstances of the funeral, and they undertake to care (one hopes) for the body.
The other day I worked for a husband-and-wife team up here for the first time. They are pretty trad re clothes, walking in front of the hearse etc, but bless 'em, they and all their helpers sat in the back row of the crem and were very much part of what went on. They were also good with the people. My kind of undertakers, because despite being v trad in appearance, they were considerate and kindly with the family, not in the least Heep-like, and showed signs of listening to what I was saying - much the most important criterion, of course! -:)
They will go far, those people :)
ReplyDeleteI think fds can see themselves as guardians of a right way to do things. It can lead them to funnel people in the direction of church services, for example. It gets more murky when this is allied to the saleable paraphernalia of the traditional funeral that gives them their living.
ReplyDeleteThere's something about this tale though that feels a little different. Gareth the Box's reaction is that of a man with a clear idea of what is proper, but also suggests he knows the people he is talking to and feels able to speak directly - more like a shocked neighbour than a remote figure of authority. Their reaction - more giggles - tends to reinforce the impression.
Hmmm, well, that's charitable Vale. The family were amused in retrospect, but a bit cross at the time (when they'd finished giggling) and I suspect that's because they felt Gareth was seeking to impose a community ethic of which he felt himself to be a significant provider and guardian. I suppose few FDs feel like that nowadays?
ReplyDeleteCustodian of the protocols, a sacerdotal presence. I see this as a status thing possibly brought on by the compliant disposition of countless clients disempowered by grief. Given the mercurial quality of grief as expressed in the way it plays upon the emotions, this undertaker's one-way-fits-all insistence does serve the purpose of making his job easier.
ReplyDelete