Absence and A Funeral

As some of you will be aware I have been away for the last couple of weeks. I went down to England to attend the funeral of my younger brother known in Blogland as Scriptor Senex. but to me and many as CJ.  Most of you will have read my post of 27 January about his death.

I was fortunate in that my son took his vehicle (which I'm not insured to drive) and drove the 1000 miles there and back. There was a day, not so many years ago, when I drove from Lewis to Tuscany via England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Northern Italy and enjoyed it. Now I will be very happy if I never have to drive in England again. It's full of people and cars! They all seem to me to be in a hurry and to have very little patience. With apologies to all my Englandshire readers who, of course, are not included in that generalisation.

As is the case with many of my generation, we and our friends from school and university etc are scattered not just through Britain but all over the world. So it was comforting to know that there were people watching the ceremony via a video link who might be anywhere in the world. 

You can’t get to your 80th year without hearing quite a few eulogies. I’ve heard quite a few and I’ve written and delivered some as well. Nothing had ever been as difficult and as complex as trying to distill the vast amount of material that CJ, has provided in his 74 years.  

From his writing (which included amongst many other things two novels and 'The Urban Countryman's Notebook), art in various media, collecting, voluntary work, Postcrossing, and his voracious appetite for reading CJ was a very extraordinary person.

A lot of CJ's life was very serious from his physical condition to his work and many of his interests. However, he did have a humorous side and a flippant side.

One example that comes to mind was the fact that Jo had told him that she would never marry a man who wore pink socks. At the wedding meal speech CJ concluded by removing the black socks he was wearing to reveal a pair of bright pink socks underneath. 

To celebrate the various facets of CJ, Jo had him dressed for his final journey in his suit to show his serious side, a jazzy tie and purple multi coloured socks to show how way-out and off-beat he could be, and his walking boots to show his love of nature and the outdoors. 

Goodbye, CJ. 

Celebrating Life

It started with my Maternal Grandmother in 1971 at the age of 93. She died. She sat down, her heart stopped and she died. Rather like Francis Garrood's Ernest, nobody had expected it, least of all my Grandmother. 

Some years before she died she had had influenza. That was in the days when the doctor would come to the house in the middle of the night and pronounce that the climax would be in a few hours and the patient would either die or, if she got through that, the would be fine. Nana had got through it so was invincible. After that she gave instructions that no black was to be worn at her funeral.

In the nearly half a century I've lived on Lewis I have been to a great many funerals. A funeral is a very important occasion and in the earlier days a thousand people could turn up. I still wear a dark suit, black tie and, in winter, the Crombie I bought in George Henry Lee (John Lewis in Liverpool) I bought around 60 years ago. 

At my Grandmother's funeral I wore a tie of red and black tiny diamonds the overall effect of which was a muted red. At the gathering afterwards I was very publicly berated by a relative. Mores hadn't moved forward.

When our son, Andy, died in 2006, he made all the arrangements for his farewell: it was to be a celebration of his life and there was to be no mourning and nothing black. There was a Humanist celebrant: Andy was atheist. The service opened with a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. Apart from that I can recall absolutely nothing whatsoever of the day: not even where we went afterwards. Mind you it was all in London where Andy lived. 

At the beginning of this week an acquaintance of 40 or so years died. The Celebration of Life Service was held in the Salvation Army Hall. Those attending were asked to wear bright colours. Everyone made some effort - even those who probably had nothing even semi-bright in their wardrobe. I wore my bright red waistcoat, a colourful tie and no black whatsoever. She had a wonderful send-off with lots of happy moments recounted. The irony of it was that probably more people were crying than I've ever seen at any Lewis funeral before.

When I go, and like everyone else I surely shall, please make sure you are wearing a bright colour to remember me. If you're wearing black and talking of the things that await me, I shall come back and haunt you.

Funerals

I am a great admirer of The Glasgow Boys.  One of the pictures which looms large is A Highland Funeral by James Guthrie painted in 1882. When I arrived on Lewis it had moved on a bit and women now attend the Church Service. In the Free Church, however, it is still a very formal and sombre occasion. Sometimes the name of the deceased is still not mentioned.

A Highland Funeral, James Guthrie, 1882

I have on various occasions posted about funerals and what they mean to me but on this occasion I really am concentrating on a very simple and single subject: neckties.

No one going to a funeral on Lewis would wear anything other than a black or sombre tie. It's the only occasion I wear a black tie and my black Crombie overcoat.

However, my Maternal Grandmother's stipulated that the family would not wear black ties at her funeral. That funeral was 50 years ago this year and we didn't. Mine, I recall very well, was a silk black and dark red minuscule check tie (at that time my idea of risqué). However that didn't stop one of my Nana's contemporaries (I can't recall exactly what relative she was - help please CJ if you read this) tearing me off a strip in front of the gathered mourners for being inappropriately and disrespectfully dressed.

My son arranged his own end of life service (he refused to call it a funeral) as a celebration of his life and insisted there was no sign of mourning. There wasn't.

The older I get and given where I live and the current pandemic I did start wondering what I would like when my time comes. I've had a wonderful life and I don't want anyone to mourn my passing. I understand, though, people need a focus for what was and, perhaps still is, called closure. So, if there has to be something, I want a celebration of my life and I certainly don't want anyone wearing mourning or a black tie.

How about you?

On Getting Wet

Pluviophile (should that be pluvia (L.) meaning rain?): A lover of rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. Antonym: Ombrophobe.

So long as I am prepared for it I don't mind walking in the rain. When I was a youngster we spent our holidays in North Wales or in The Lake District. Our annual holiday were always in August (school holidays and Dad's holidays) which was the busiest month for those areas. However, August was also the wettest summer month in North Wales and The Lake District.

The family's big love was walking up hills and mountains. Bearing in mind that we had waterproofs which were well behind the modern day standards of breathable, overnight drying materials, we often started out with waterproofs not much drier than we had arrived home the previous evening. 

We decided that it was such an inevitability that there was no use moaning about it so we simply got on with it and decided whether we were going to be Lesser Wetted Hikers or Greater Wetted Hikers that day.

Even today I am very happy to go out for my walk however wet it is. But then I have superb waterproof gear and by the time I arrive at The Woodlands for my morning coffee after my morning walk and have hung up my waterproofs I'm as happy as Larry. A far cry from my Lake District days.

I'm not, however a pluviophile. Today started out dry. The afternoon was dry. I went to a funeral at midday. On Lewis the coffin is carried by the mourners in turn for as long as it takes for every mourner to have a 'lift'. (A good Lewis tradition worthy of a post perhaps). I was wearing a Crombie (heavy wool overcoat). I was wearing black leather town shoes. During the half hour that it took to carry the coffin the heavens opened. We got wet. There is nothing heavier nor more uncomfortable than a soaking Crombie and wet town shoes.

A Funeral By Any Other Name

Funeral: noun,  a ceremony or service held shortly after a person's death, usually including the person's burial or cremation.

I've had an aversion to the term 'funeral' for a very long time. My son, Andrew, insisted that he would not have a funeral to mourn his death. He had made all the arrangements for a 'celebration of his life'. My dear friend Mo (of recent posts) also insisted that no one should mourn her demise but should celebrate the life she had had. I, too, have made such desires known for the inevitable event (long off though I hope it is).

A few days ago I went to a celebration for a life lived. It was quite a long service in terms of physical minutes (well over an hour) but it seemed very short because of the nature of the celebration.

There was so much happiness expressed for a life lived. That is something I have not seen on Lewis.

In fact, therefore, whatever one calls the service the generic term is a funeral and it can be religious or non-religious, a mourning or a celebration as is decided upon.

I was intrigued by the recent celebration I attended which was held in a church and was a religious service. All the celebrants were female: the vicar and the person who conducted the service (who was a friend of the deceased and, I assume, a deacon); and those who delivered the eulogy and the readings (Proverbs - The Hymn to a Good Wife and Roald Dahl's 'Be an Enthusiast'). The SoSo Choir (of which the deceased was a member) were also all-female and performed 'The Rose'. I think the Church Wardens were female as well. As The Dylon said "The times they are a-changin'. ".  I would add "..and about time too."

The service had a very different feel to any other I have attended (although it's by no means the first with a female celebrant).

Last Man Standing

In July I wrote a post entitled Mo about a very old friendship and Mo's demise in June.

In late summer 2012 I drove Mo and her sister-in-law by marriage, Di, from Di's home near Liverpool to a villa in the small village of Belforte in Tuscany via France, Switzerland and the Italian Lakes. It was Mo's 70th and she had treated us, her daughters and son-in-law to a holiday in a villa there. I blogged about it at the time.

Di had gone to Canada for the celebration of Mo's life and her son, Ben, had stood in for me to read the eulogy that I had written. Just over a week ago Di, a robust lady if ever there was one, died suddenly. 

Mo's daughters,  for whom Auntie Di was very special, came over from Canada. I am, coincidentally, on The Wirral less than 20 miles away.

Today I attended the celebration service for Di's life. The church was packed. I don't think that I have seen as many people at a funeral service outside of Lewis.

I've been acquainted with Di for nearly 60 years. She was a lady who was proud to be an 'old-fashioned' wife and mother for whom family was everything. However, today I learned so much about her from the eulogy that I did not know. She was, indeed, a special lady.

The comment that disturbed me, though, was that, of the trio, I was the 'last man standing'.

Di, Fiona, Mo, Heather, Jefferey at Belforte. I'm taking the photo!

 

An Island Funeral: Angus M Graham

There is nothing quite like an Island funeral. There was no one quite like Angus Graham. So it was to be expected that Angus's funeral would be quite an occasion. 

Most of you who read this won't even have heard of Angus Graham so I will just mention that he was a prominent Island politician from about 1984 until a couple of years ago. He and I worked very closely (though not without the occasional disagreement) and I respected him because, unlike so many politicians, if you were straight with him then he was straight with you. 

About two months before I left New Zealand last April I had an exceptionally strong dream in which he figured (he was not someone I would usually have dreamed about!). It was not pleasant and it stayed with me for the rest of that day. It worried me to the extent that I emailed two people whom I thought would know if anything was wrong. Indeed it was. He had just been told that his cancer has returned and that it was serious. I met him a few days after I got home and we had a chat. He commented that it was remarkable how the mind dealt with unpleasant situations. I think from what he said that, like many of us, it is not death of which we are afraid but the way in which we will die. 

So this morning the Township of Back came to a standstill after the funeral service at the Back Free Church. I should explain. After the service it is the Island tradition that the coffin shall be carried by the mourners to the hearse - in olden days it would have been to the cemetery (which often was not accessible to vehicles). I would estimate that there were about a thousand mourners. Eight mourners at a time carry the coffin on its bier - four on each side. The mourners who have not had a 'lift' form two lines behind the cortege and walk to the front of the bier. As the back person leaves so the others move one place back and the 'new' person joins at the front. Each person in a large funeral like this probably keeps his station for about 3 paces. It was a long walk today. 

There is one road connecting the Back area with Stornoway. The cortege travelled along that road. After Back there are the Townships of Gress and the Tolstas. So if you were on one side of Back and wanted to be on the other side there was only one solution: patience. 

I will miss Angus.