I Demand a Fuss! Why We Should Turn Our Backs on Hassle-Free Funerals

A confession: I’ve now reached an age where Talking Pictures TV has a strange allure. The independent channel, dedicated to rerunning old films and TV programmes free from the constant proselytising of much of contemporary television, is grist to my increasingly greying and wrinkled mill.

There are many joys here: crime dramas such as The Saint and Maigret hark back to a time of narratives uncomplicated by political agendas; The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club offers tobacco-hazed variety acts that would make modern day producers blush, whilst a whole swathe of black and white classic films remind one of a golden age of story telling. I’m happy to admit that I’ve found my televisual tribe.

Not surprisingly, the ad breaks, targeting a viewership closer to centurion than teenager, feature mobility scooters, orthopaedic mattresses, walk-in baths and Dentafix, all flogged by elderly actors who ironically still boast their own teeth. They are strangely charming, providing a gentle prod about my own mortality, but it is the omnipresent funeral advertisements where things become more sinister.

If you’re of a younger mien, you might not have noticed the cultural shift in recent years to persuade us that funerals should be “no fuss”, “affordable” and “burden free” for those who remain after your sad demise. Long gone are the days when your send-off was arranged through a local director with a sturdy name like Arthur Cavendish Esq., who, with a suitably grave and ingratiating manner, would guide a family towards the dignified mahogany, brass, Bentley and flora of a splendid “do”. Instead, we’re encouraged to do it “your way”, although whether “your” refers to the wishes of the deceased or tight-fisted relatives is not clear.

Images of “eco-friendly” wicker coffins promise an end-of-life atonement for a lifetime of rapacious consumption, but the idea of being popped into a fraying laundry hamper doesn’t sit right with me. Similarly, a recent ad showing the dearly departed squeezed into the back of a Morris Traveller, as mourners with knowing smiles look on, upsets my very delicate sensibilities; for me, it’s 12 black stallions with white feathered plumes or nothing. And as for funerals as a “celebration”, I don’t think so. My wife has strict instructions to throw herself, her anguished wails filling the churchyard, into my grave. I won’t demand other mourners do the same, but if they insist…

Levity aside, there is a serious point here. Companies with names like ‘Simplicity Cremations’, ‘Simple Send-offs’, ‘Go As You Please Funerals’ and ‘Pure Cremation’ present a motif of saving time and money and are entirely commensurate with our culture of easy consumerism and rapid disposal. But what are you going to do with these additional pounds and hours? Buy more shit from Amazon and squeeze in a few more minutes of doomscrolling? Here, surely, is the culmination of seeing aged humans as little more than bags of hollowed-out algorithms, ones that need to be quickly and efficiently deleted from the money-making matrix.

Set this alongside recent moves towards “assisted dying” and “up to birth” abortion legislation and one is forced to acknowledge that the millennia-old rituals and meanings attached to life are becoming redundant. We are being “nudged” towards a nihilistic normalisation of a throwaway existence. It is surely only a matter of time before we repurpose that slogan of yore: “Keep Britain Tidy. Pop Your Granny in the Bin.”

In parts of rural Ireland, there is a tradition that local men will come together to dig the grave, with an occasional pause for a tot of whiskey, of their departed neighbour. They might not even have known them well, but there is a deeply felt sense that, “This is me. This is the respect I would like.” I’ve never dug a grave, but I imagine that making a six-foot hole with a spade is back-breaking work. Few things could be less convenient. But here is service, duty and meaning in a life, whether well lived or not, that we should all aspire to. The idea that we should all just slip away quietly is inhuman. Every human society, in every time and place, has made a fuss when one of their number has died. I want a fuss. You can keep your Simple Send-off.

Andy Simpson is officially ‘getting on a bit’ but finds solace in posting silly things on his nostalgia account Ron Manager Remembers Nottingham on X.