The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [129]
J. W. and J. Mettam are undertakers in the small Derbyshire town of Bakewell. Mr. Roger Jepson, managing director, says that their coffins are made on site as of yore, measured to fit in a range of sizes starting at 5 feet 5 inches by 16 inches and going up in 2-inch increments. Small coffins for children are made to order. Materials used are various woods or chipboard.
The Mettams provide a full service, as much or as little as the family wants and is prepared to pay for. Prices range from $1,056 (660 pounds) for the complete basic funeral, with oak veneer coffin, to the top-of-the-line Devonshire, solid oak coffin, for $1,750. Included in the price are collection of the body, obtaining death certificate, making all arrangements with church or crematorium, notices in newspapers, all transportation for accompanying family—they will even arrange for a funeral tea at a suitable hotel if asked. They cater to all denominations and to nonreligious groups such as the British Humanist Association.
In one respect, there has been a departure from the old ways: embalming is on the rise. It is always done if the body is to be sent abroad, or transported any distance within the U.K. It is also usually done if the family is coming to the Chapel of Rest to see the body—unless the family specifically objects. Unlike the mortuaries in the USA—where mortuaries routinely refuse to permit viewing unless the body has been embalmed—families here often view unembalmed bodies. In about 70 percent of cases the family (they often bring children) does ask to see the body, and this is encouraged.
However “viewing”—as the U.S. funeral directors call it—is generally limited to the close family members and is in no way comparable to the American custom of a general spectacle for the neighbors, coworkers, and mere acquaintances.
What about American caskets? They are never used in this way, although Mr. Jepson has heard of them in London. Floral tributes? Less of those—more donations to worthy charities. The coffin, closed, is usually at the front of the church.
A friend described the funeral of a retired farm foreman who bred his own Shire horses. “The tiny church was packed,” she said. “It couldn’t hold half the people who came, so there was a crowd in the churchyard. It was snowing, and bitterly cold. His family had arranged for a dray drawn by a Shire, all got up super-smart, to carry the coffin to the church. There is a steepish hill and I heard a sound which took me back sixty years—the scrape of the brake on the wheel of the dray. The farm men lined up outside the church and made an arch of pitchforks when the coffin was carried out. Talk about moving to tears—a village funeral is a killer, far worse than a big London affair.” It would seem that the Derbyshire countryside is for the moment quite safe from incursions of the American way.
At the other end of England, country funerals are conducted in much the same manner. A friend visited Philip Wakely and his brother Simon, of A. J. Wakely and Sons in Bridport, Dorset. They have two other funeral parlors under the same family name in Beaminister and Lyme Regis, all within a twenty-mile radius. The firm was established in 1897, and holds strongly to long-standing custom.
While they no longer make coffins on the premises, these are all in the traditional coffin shape. Thus far, nobody has asked for an American casket, said Mr. Wakely, “but if people wanted them, we’d have to supply them.” As in Derbyshire, “people are tending to ask for charitable contributions, and only the family brings flowers from their own gardens,” he said.
Prices range from $1,040 for an oak-veneered coffin with engraved nameplate, removal of the deceased within a twenty-mile radius, hire of a hearse, pallbearers and funeral director’s arrangement fee to the “Dorset Burial Funeral,” which comes with an oakdene-paneled coffin, for $1,952.
There is no extra charge for embalming, which would come under