I have a good sense of humour. Not always appropriate in the funeral trade I grant you, but it's a good mechanism for surviving the bad stuff.
So imagine my wry chuckles when I arrived at a crematorium last week. I got there at 2 for a 2:30 service, as I always do (better an hour early than a minute late). I went into the back office, to check with the chapel attendant that all was okay with the music etc. (I love Wesley Music).
One of the bearers was already there. We said hello, I shook his hand and he said "your bugler will be here at 2:15".
I'm sorry - my what?
Yes, we were having The Last Post. Nobody had felt the need to tell me.
In a way, it wasn't a surprise - the man had a military past (his life, like so many others, had been changed by his National Service experience), but nobody had said a word.
I'd had two or three conversations with the funeral arranger. I'd spent the best part of two hours with the chief mourner, drinking tea and finding out about the dear departed, but still no mention of the blinkin' bugler!
Now, I appear to be making a mountain out of a molehill and I genuinely did find it all amusing, but it could have been a problem. This particular crematorium works on a 30-minute cycle, which means you have 20 minutes for your ceremony. And they are strict on this. I've heard it said that if you take more than 22 minutes, they kidnap your children and sell them to the slave trade. I don't have kids, but I'm worried for the cat.
For this particular ceremony, however, a double time slot had been booked, and so we had a bit of leeway, but it could have been so very different.
Another one to chalk up to experience.
I love this job. It makes me laugh.
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2 comments:
Isn't it deplorable that the rigid time slots allocated for our farewell ceremonies for our dead require people to create cut-and-dried scripts, timed to the second, which permit no spontaneity, no digression, no overrun. Cursory is compulsory.
How many undertakers advise their clients of the option of a double slot at the crem? Not enough. Cursory is convenient.
Sense of humour not just convenient. Compulsory!
Great tune, that Last Post. Nape-tingling stuff!
You're absolutely right about the power of the tune. I knew it was coming, but it still caught me by surprise and put a lump in my throat.
Isn't it fantastic that something that simple is so powerful?
The time slot at that particular crem is a nightmare. The week before I'd worked there and a double slot had been offered, but the family said they didn't need it. One of the speakers (who had said that 5 minutes was a long time) then spoke for about 10!
The FD afterwards said "I didn't think you were going to finish on time", to which my reply was "I only said about a third of what I'd written". It was the only way it was possible.
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