There are no more funerals than they used to be – David Randall

When you get to a certain age, you get used to the fact that things aren’t what they used to be. But I doubt that anything has changed as much as the way the British deal with death. Until a few years ago, people entered their graves after a solemn funeral ceremony, imbued with religious piety, in which people dressed in black participated, with songs, prayers and some predictable words spoken by a priest about the meaning of existence. A ceremony, in its essential features, unchanged since my three-of-a-kind grandfather was buried in 1725. In 2021, however, things don’t work that way. Just go to a British funeral to find that it has not only been made more secular and personal, but it also tries to add some humor to the occasion. Some of these innovations are perhaps due to the will of the deceased, others are the invention of well-meaning but clumsy relatives. The success of the thing is inevitably difficult to assess.

The UK’s largest funeral home in recent years has been asked to organize a funeral in a zoo, a tepee and, God forbid, a McDrive. Often the company found itself setting up superhero-themed funerals (with the corpse in disguise), painting the coffin with the colors of a football team, decorating it with a leopard motif for women. The same firm may provide a hearse in the form of a glass gig with feathered horses pulling it (a means of transport often associated with crime bosses) or something more modest, such as a motorcycle with a sidecar.

The list goes on. Soccer ball-shaped tombstones are popular, as are teddy bear-shaped tombstones. And then there are the things that relatives ask to put in the coffins to accompany loved ones on their journey into the unknown. Among the items I recently noticed are a fake leg (probably attached to the deceased’s body when he was alive), a phone (if anyone will answer?), An online shopping catalog, a broomstick, and – my favorite – a box of Chinese takeout. I wondered, with shrimp toast or not? It is, I suppose, a simple update of the sort of thing that Anglo-Saxon chieftains’ wives were buried with – the ivory comb, the favorite clasp, the sealed ceramic bowls. This reinvention of conventional funerals comes at a price: the average cost of a function in the UK today is € 10,700.

My funeral experience – although thankfully devoid of superhero-themed ceremonies – is now vast. I gave the funeral speech to more friends and colleagues than I wanted. My advice, if they are people you knew well, is to tell your experiences with them (a bit of censorship is necessary, so as not to rage on the pain of widows or widowers), and to avoid portraying them as saints. . Nothing is less convincing than a tribute that suggests that St. Francis of Assisi is being buried, and not a Sheffield accountant with a bad temper. With people you didn’t know well, it’s best to do some research and say what is, in fact, a newspaper obituary. The most challenging I did was a eulogy for the husband of a friend of my wife, a man I barely knew. It didn’t help that he committed suicide by jumping off the top of a multi-story parking lot. I did my homework, wrote what I had to do and took the precaution of reading it to the widow one day before the ceremony.

But the main surprise I had at a funeral a few years ago was when my closest friend’s family called me and asked me to direct the ceremony. But how, I replied, don’t you have to be a priest or an authorized person? Apparently not. Under British law, if the officiating person takes care of the body and delivers it to the crematorium (77 per cent of British funerals end with cremation), and as long as the crematorium does not dispose of the body, you can do whatever you want. during the funeral. I then found myself in front of the lectern, intent on presenting the speakers and the music, being very careful not to press the wrong key so as not to prematurely send the coffin into the furnace.

Finally, a few words about music. At British funerals the most popular song is an obvious choice, My way by Frank Sinatra, though I will leave with you by Andrea Bocelli is replacing her. Humor is always a risk. Some families find it hilarious to say goodbye to their loved ones with British songs like Always look on the bright side of life, but the worst thing I heard at a funeral was The birdie song. In Italy the song is known as The dance of the here. Imagine it being put at your mother’s funeral.

(Translation by Federico Ferrone)