14/02/2025
The start of my journey…….
I always feared death, even from a young age. When I got older that didn’t really go away; when my mum and dad ran a pub when I was 14 and my bedroom window overlooked a very small graveyard of the dilapidated church next door. I think I was more fearful of the afterlife at that point and my mum quite rightly told me that I should fear the living not the dead. That church is now a fancy restaurant on Beech Rd in Chorlton, most people who have been in that restaurant will not be aware of its history.
If I passed a funeral director’s I’d break out in a cold sweat and each time I went past Southern Cemetery ( which happens to be the 2nd largest municipal cemetery in Europe with the largest being in Paris) and right by where I lived, I would usually be on a bus so would look in the opposite direction until we’d passed, and I could relax again. Then….at the age of 17 we lived directly opposite Manchester Crematorium; my irrational fear was all around me. So, what makes that person go into the funeral industry? Bizarre indeed….. I don’t fully know either, but it was a sequence of events that brought me here.
I joined the Royal Navy at the age of 18 and sailed the seven seas…..well, most of them. Then I did what most people do, got married, had children and once out of the the RN I didn’t have a clear career path and went from one part time job to another, whilst bringing up my children and trying to find that purpose for me. In 2009 my Grandma died and we came to Manchester for her funeral. The funeral director was a lady and looking back, it stirred something in me. Was it the authority, the respect, the uniform maybe…..perhaps some traits from my forces life; I’m not sure but it stayed with me for a number of years until I found myself on my own with my girls, still going from one admin job to another and never finding my space.
Then, after a short time in a role where I was (gratefully) made redundant, I decided to look into those stirrings from Grandma’s funeral and eventually I got a temping job with Co-op Funeralcare but at their head office in January 2013. I worked on an admin team which organised various contractors for any jobs which needed doing in the funeral homes….it was a start. The job wasn’t permanent as it was being outsourced to a big cheese. I had 8 months to get myself sorted. Speaking with the wonderful people in the branches on a daily basis confirmed to me what I wanted to do but the money for funeral arrangers was shocking and only part time jobs were available, so I found a branch based admin role which I applied for and didn’t get, however, I was offered an arrangers job which I took (under money duress) and in August 2013 I began my first job in the operational side of Co-op Funeralcare.
In those days, there was a “hub” of funeral homes, 5 or 6 in an area with a shared manager. I would be working in Sale eventually, but my first day was in Moss Side. My boss asked me if I’d ever seen a deceased person to which I replied, “my grandad when I was 14” I didn’t tell him it had scared me witless! And so, I was shown into a large room where a very peaceful West Indian lady was resting. She was 107 years old and didn’t look a day over 70. I remember thinking how marvellous she looked and how surreal the situation I was in. We then went into the mortuary where two other members of staff had just brought a deceased person into our care. Two in five minutes, I was doing ok I thought and all of a sudden, I felt much more at ease.
The next few weeks consisted of training courses, being driven around to various funeral homes and meeting other staff and being taught in house how to arrange a funeral. I don’t remember who my first arrangement was for, but I remember being petrified, however, everything went well, and I was off to a flying start. A first I do remember though was showing a family member into the chapel of rest to sit with a loved one. He was a gentleman in his 80’s and before he went into the chapel we sat for a little while and we chatted about his wife. He showed me photographs of her in her youth, she was a school teacher but they couldn’t have children, he told me. He was so very proud of her, in awe of her beauty after so many years. We sat for around ten minutes until he decided he was ready to go in. I stood outside of the chapel with him and explained the lay out of the room and what he could expect when I opened the door. He went in and I gently closed the door behind him, and I heard him greet her with so much love in his voice and then I heard him cry. I began to cry too and then I walked away whilst this gentleman sat with his wife for the very last time. At that point, it hit me. Other than grandparents (which you expect) I’d not had a bereavement, and I was completely oblivious to the sheer gravity of it and the immense loss that people suffer. This s**t was real. I was 41, I knew I was lucky.
