The English way of death
Two tales from the press, one about the murder of Croydon woman Sally Anne Bowman, and the other about the execrable taste the public has in send off music.
In the case of the former, the woman's parents are demanding a permamant memorial at the site of her murder, with the local residents less than chuffed. While "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."(John Donne), there is a time for public grief, and it is called a funeral, and it is held at a place of worship or a cemetery. Anything else represents an intrusion of the private into the public realm and a demand for the wider public to partake in a ritual for which they may feel no real emotion at all.
Re the latter, the most popular music at funerals are pop songs - James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Jennifer Warnes etc and the deeply deeply creepy stalker's anthem, 'Evey breath you take'. Admittedly with the decline of religious faith, the public should be commended, I suppose, for shunning hypocrisy and not having extracts from requiem masses, but it does rather reflect the death of high culture and the locking onto the cloyingly sentimental as expressed by others, rather than attempting to articulate more personal feelings. (I'm going to request Blind Willie Johnson's instrumental 'Dark was the night, cold was the ground', "the most transcendent piece in all American music" in the opinion of Ry Cooder. Extract here).
Where I see these two strands coming together is the post-Diana pornographising of grief, and a demand (that word again) that we should all partake in a secular wailing and gnashing of teeth, even though I consider grief is only truly honest when it relates to those we know.
I await the brickbats.
In the case of the former, the woman's parents are demanding a permamant memorial at the site of her murder, with the local residents less than chuffed. While "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."(John Donne), there is a time for public grief, and it is called a funeral, and it is held at a place of worship or a cemetery. Anything else represents an intrusion of the private into the public realm and a demand for the wider public to partake in a ritual for which they may feel no real emotion at all.
Re the latter, the most popular music at funerals are pop songs - James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Jennifer Warnes etc and the deeply deeply creepy stalker's anthem, 'Evey breath you take'. Admittedly with the decline of religious faith, the public should be commended, I suppose, for shunning hypocrisy and not having extracts from requiem masses, but it does rather reflect the death of high culture and the locking onto the cloyingly sentimental as expressed by others, rather than attempting to articulate more personal feelings. (I'm going to request Blind Willie Johnson's instrumental 'Dark was the night, cold was the ground', "the most transcendent piece in all American music" in the opinion of Ry Cooder. Extract here).
Where I see these two strands coming together is the post-Diana pornographising of grief, and a demand (that word again) that we should all partake in a secular wailing and gnashing of teeth, even though I consider grief is only truly honest when it relates to those we know.
I await the brickbats.
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on Monday, October 02, 2006 at 10:56 am.
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I was thinking of mentioning Winner's Police memorials - which I also disapprove of. I wasn't aware of that other act of tastelessness.
No brickbats from me either. My partner is a Funeral Director and regularly needs to "gently dissuade" mourners from inappropriate music. One family actually wanted "Re-light my Fire" played at the Crem.
I also cringe at the growing need for public displays of grief - particularly the roadside monuments at the scene of fatal car accidents. I understand these are known as "Mourning Bling" within the Funeral Trade !
The mass hysteria following the death of Diana was the first time I have felt totally alienated from my fellow countrymen.
It is a sad sign of the dumbing down of our values and dignity. The same culture that encourages people to bare the souls on Tricia and prostitute themselves for their 15 minutes of fame on reality TV.
Nice to 'see' you Andrew. Yes, alienation is exactly the word over the Diana business.
I think this nonsense of 'grief' for public consumption reached its zenith / nadir with the Liverpool chicken....
Not so much the music, but another funeral anecdote:
A friend's mother died late 2004, and despite the divorce etc her ex-husband led the mourning party. Anyway, he is a big chap - about the same build as Arik Sharon, and had to use a chair / crutches to get around. Anyway, what with near horizontal rain and it being a cemetery way out near the M25, he nearly slipped into the freshly dug grave whereupon some wag stage whispered -"It would have been the first time he'd been on top in years". Gave us all a giggle anyway.
(JSR - if you are reading this, I hope you don't mind)
years ago Al Beeb had a lot of singing luvvies do
'it's such a perfect day' and that will be played as I advance up the aisle.
dianas funeral set the standard for all future grief police events.it was sad more than anything.and while diana got a fountain in that park,the commonwealth war graves commision were facing budget cuts.say no more.
RM - you know that song is about heroin? Cuts in the CWG budget? That is way, way beyond shameful.
GOP - well, at least one can trot out the 'good innings' line if someone has reached old age.
The cheap sentimentality of the British demonstrates how much a nation can change in 40 or 50 years.
Of course, Diana and Tony Blair were made for each other. Two of a kind. She served him well in death. And that was the starter's gun for shallow, sentimental, runaway emotion in Britain.
Do you remember the mandatory two-minute silence for Diana on the day she was buried? (The War dead, who gave their lives for us, only get one minute.) It was enforced in the office I was working in and I ostentatiously worked on my crossword throughout.
Now we have a two minute - or is it a three or four minute? - silence for the victims of the London Transport self-detonating community. I was as appalled as anyone and had bottomless sympathy for the people who lost their lives or were maimed, and for their poor families. But a two minute silence for being a victim?
Now someone wants a memorial to her daughter for being murdered - as absolutely dreadful as that is.
And being buried or cremated to shallow pop music rather than something spiritually comforting and even uplifting. This really isn't a Britain I recognise.
C,
wasn't aware of the heroin angle but it makes it even more ironic.everyone who knows me knows how deeply I loathe al beeb/smackheads and many of the left wing fuckers who sang on the record.
verity,whilst I appreciate your views and you are a person who's views I respect,to me your funeral is your last chance to make a point.
I would have hymns
'I vow to thee my country' and 'Jerusalem' in the middle of the service.I hope people would leave the funeral and not pay their licence fee in my memory.
Here here Verity.
The whole Diana thing made me quite nauseous.
Re the Bowman business, it gets worse - a panegyric was read by a TV psychic called Colin Fry, who according to his website considers "Life is an eternal process... you cannot die".
RM - consider this:
"Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on".
And pair it with the pay off line, "You're going to reap just what you sow".
Well, Rigger Mortice, of course you are correct. One's funeral is one's last - or perhaps penultimate - chance to make a point. (The reading of the will ranks right up there, though.)
If Evelyn Waugh were alive today, he could write "The Loved One - in Spades". How funny we thought was the American way of death, now out-gruesomed by the British way of death.
But the weirdness did begin with the Diana grief-fest and Tone, ever the opportunist, couldn't wait to horn in on the act.
This is when putting flowers and teddy bears on doorsteps began. And these people have the vote.
Not an original thought, but I reckon many of the same people 'grieving' for Diana would have been lining the street if she had been going to the scaffold.
on the green on The Mount in Coulsdon a grieving family plante a tree as a memorial to the teenaged victim of an RTA. The tree has died. No one seems to have responsibility for removing said dead tree.
I'd like to see anyone going to the scaffold in today's Britain. The thought of tony blair in a tumbril gives me a nice warm feeling.
Christine - doesn't surprise me in the least. Just like those recent tombstones covered in lichen that have the most over-emotional descriptions on them.
I think there are many more of us who thought the whole Diana hysteria in 1997 was completely and utterly embarrassing for our country.
It wasn’t just Tony Blair who jumped on the band wagon of her death, many other so called celebrities at the time like Chris Evans told the press he visited the gates of Buckingham Palace everyday for a week!!!!
As for people playing music at funerals, I’ve been to a few with Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” I think it’s really for the comfort of the family more than anything, it does make me cringe though.
Personally if you can choose music for your own funeral, I would like something a little classy maybe “Adagio for Strings” for fun if cremated “Disco inferno” or “Another one bites the dust”
Permanent memorials at sites where people die always baffles me, why would you want something like that to remind you, maybe try a grave side???
Keep up the good work Croydonian, I like this blog!!!
Verity,
Emily in a tumbril is a most enjoyable thought. I favour a good old-fashioned hanging, drawing and quartering. Not that this would do any good for according to the Gospel of NuLabour (Book of Byers 7:11-13), Emily is no ordinary being and will rise again on the third day.
That's the first I'd heard of the Liverpool chicken but knew before I even went to the BBC page it was going to be funny. It was. Nice one. But I'm not sure about the maudlin Blind Willy stuff. How about a bit of Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan or Ten Years After. Those fellas' would give you a proper send off.
DP - Once a sad old blues nut, always a sad old blues nut. If the scratchy 78s are too much, check out the soundtrack to Paris, Texas, which is a straight steal from BWJ....
A few songs under consideration for my funeral - Ave Maria, Dancing Queen and The Letter from Billy Elliot. I would like to imagine I could look down on everyone having a good time as they remember our shared memories.
You know, Croydonian, it strikes me that these people who want to organise a monument for their murdered daughter would be better employed being less placid and accepting and rage against the police and this government instead. The British don't know how to demand. They do not know how to make governments perform the will of the citizenry. Why didn't they get a campaign going against the local police?
Despite the level of disappointment with the police, there is still a huge well of good will for the force (except traffic cops...) and I don't think that ill feeling is directd at the the police on the street, more at their political masters and the careerists in the upper rank. Since we are all singing off the same hymnsheet, there isn't much point in going over the arguments for elected polcie chiefs.
As a sidebar to this, a week or so after that poor girl was killed, the police were out in force asking people in and around the Croydon nightlife area, and for some reason I was there. I couldn't see any point in being obstructive, as the cop was friendly and polite and averred I hadn't seen anything as I'd been on the other side of the country (Bath) the weekend of the murder. From what I could see, the cops were taking the same approach with everyone and getting a similarly reponse in return.
Policing here is by no means perfect, but the sense I get is that the vast majority of cops are decent hard working men and women doing the best they can under trying circumstances and are at least as frustrated by the endless paperwork and being political footballs as are law abiding citizens.
Point taken, Croydonian. Then why weren't they raging and starting a campaign - which would have taken the same amount of energy as trying to get a monument to victimhood put up - against the police chief? The Home Secretary?
Someone was responsible for this woman being murdered - by which I mean, someone created the circumstances under which it was possible to murder her.
The buck stops somewhere, and that's the person they want to savage. As everyone in their area has the same MP, they could have organised a huge email and letter attack telling him/her they want action. MPs - and all elected officials - are very vulnerable to mass pressure.
Again, this is an argument for having police chiefs elected. Now, not all chiefs are elected in the US, and not all cities that have successfully controlled crime have an elected chief. The prime example of a successful appointed chief is New York. But elected or not, he is aware that he is responsible - as in people can come up to him in the street and start scolding him - to the voters.
However, I have seen elected police chiefs and it works. Like MPs, like local councillors, they want to be re-elected. The only way to get re-elected is to perform as the voters want you to perform.
In the US, they also have elected fire chiefs and the counties have elected sheriffs. Think of it! All these elected people fighting to serve you!
To be candid, I get the feeling that the British have no hunger for democracy. They would rather allow a government to become over-mighty and destroy their civil society, and complain, than expend the energy to take the whip hand.
Magisterially put Verity . No argument from me... Someone has been charged with the murder. By and large killers do seem to get caught, and I think Her Majesty's finest generally do pretty well at catching perpetrators of crimes of extreme violence. Where I think there is a disconnect between policing and what the public wants is over crimes against property.
Yes, Croydonian, they get caught and get sentenced to two years - quite a diminution of punishment given that it used to be death - and that will be commuted because you get 50% off for admitting the crime and saving the court's valuable time.
Again, we are back to the Home Secretary plus all the noisy and sick people who occupy themselves with the "rights" of people who forfeited their rights by their own deliberate actions - prisoners - and claim that prisons are "too crowded".
Hello? And I should be interested in their living conditions why? They took themselves outside the circle of civilisation, I didn't do it for them. That lady who had her life stolen from her didn't do it.
This country has lost its moral compass. You may get two or three nutjobs in the US saying that not getting enough "respect" was damaging prisoners' "self-esteem",but trust me, these affectations are not given the time of day by legislators.
Harking back to Texas, because I know it so well, offenders - not serious offenders, who are kept under lock and key at all times - are taken out in trucks, dressed in orange uniforms with TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS writ large in black on their backs, and they spend the day picking up the garbage that people have thrown out of their cars along and highways and freeways. Under armed guards.
Sometimes serious offenders are taken out for breaking up rocks for road building and the like, but they are chained to one another at the ankle. Again, the guards are armed - and in Texas, there a tradition of shooting, so believe me, they wouldn't hesitate.
In Britain, there is no will to stop crime or to punish malfeasants. And everyone grumbles and does nothing about it. They refer, in a phrase that never ceases to chill my spine, to "our political masters". So craven! So supine! In a democracy, a pseudonym for "political master" is "voter".
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