Funerals

FUNERALS

Many funerals are unsettling experiences, not necessarily in proportion to the sorrow felt. The traditional church service has in part an anonymous character, designed to emphasize the departed’s membership of the very numerous community of souls. Even in more secular times, it immerses those present in ancient and shared rituals, which tell that death is a state universally shared.

This timeless aspect should, of course, be offset and complemented by personal memories, tributes and prayers. Sometimes it is a bit of stretch. A sanitised biography may be delivered by someone (usually the celebrant) who may not have personally known the deceased. There may emerge a distinct impression that, for all the effort to “say only good of the dead” and for all the window dressing, there is little warmth felt towards him or her. For such a funeral the traditional elements sustain the whole thing.

Occasionally one attends a funeral entirely out of ordinary. In recent times, for me, there have been two.

My mother died in Dec 2012, aged 90. She had been under no illusions about the probably imminent coming of the end. Although she still lived on her own and possessed  undiminished formidable intelligence and memory, her body was failing and she suffered a constant succession of debilitating conditions.

She was fiercely irreligious from her 50s onwards (born a catholic…). Her wishes were for no funeral at all- she wanted her remains to be disposed of without ceremony.

But funerals are for the living. We, her family, wanted to compromise between her wishes and our need for ceremony. So we devised our own funeral “service”. This centred round a woodland burial, just across the fields from her bungalow outside Cambridge. The immediate family- 3 children, 4 grandchildren, a partner, and an ex-daughter in law who had remained close to her attended. The instructions to the undertakers were that  they should bring the coffin in an estate car, not a hearse.

The coffin was placed by the side of the grave and the undertakers withdrew out of earshot. Standing in a circle, we read tributes, personal and honest: no need to explain anything to a wider audience. Then the undertakers came forward and completed the burial. And that was that.

(A few weeks’ later we had a small memorial “service” for a wider circle of relatives and friends- led by a humanist celebrant. That was a good occasion, again devised by the family in collaboration with the humanist. Having a third party celebrant helps give structure to a larger occasion and takes a lot of responsibility off the shoulders of the family.)

The second funeral, in September 2014, was another extraordinary occasion, but as public as my mother’s was private.

A church in Blackheath was packed, literally to the rafters, or gallery, by several hundred mourners to celebrate the life, and mourn the untimely death, of lawyer Stephen Lloyd.

This was an occasion where was no need for any recital of Stephen’s life’s achievements. They had been writ large in national obituaries and internet memorials. And no one was there from mere duty. Stephen’s work and personality had enriched the lives of all who were gathered, family, friends, colleagues, clients and others.

The funeral service was almost entirely given to personal tributes. Stephen was a Quaker; and Quakerism is particularly fitted to promoting and framing this way of celebrating a life. The silence of reflection is the fundamental medium. Arising from reflection, spontaneous testimonies are offered by anyone, each contribution followed by renewed silence. Someone presides, really only as timekeeper and , on this occasion, introducer of the proceedings.

There were important exceptions to the lack of formal script. Stephen’s immediate family spoke in turn at the start of the funeral. Their words were sometimes painful, always moving and often amusing. His widow, Lorna, ended her valediction by quoting the epitaph written for himself by the American poet Raymond Carver (Late Fragment):

“And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

Beloved on the earth.”

The beautiful and moving ambiguity of this poem, when recited by the surviving spouse or partner, is that the “myself beloved”  is simultaneously the dead person and the living speaker.

On entering the church, each mourner  was given a sprig of a flower. We were asked to go up to the wicker casket and each weave our sprig into it.

Afterwards, Stephen’s four sons carried the casket out to an extemporised “bicycle hearse”. This was a low flat trailer pulled by two tandem bikes affixed either side of a rigid yoke. Thus the casket was pedalled away, followed by Lorna, also riding a bike.

One of the hearse bikes later suffered a puncture on the way.

Being Rude to a Laureate

BEING RUDE TO A LAUREATE

In early 1969 I was in Paris, aged 18, on the start of an Oxbridge gap year ( the December term was the Oxbridge entrance exam term following Summer A levels). The culmination of a successful 6^th form career at a remote boarding school can breed an intellectual priggishness seldom matched later, except by the few fish who sustain their intellectual pre-eminence, self-believed or actual, into increasingly bigger ponds.

There I was in Paris, with a few friends from 6^th form, living in a comfortable garret sur la rive gauche, “learning French” at the Alliance Francaise ( then as now a slightly haphazard organisation)- all on a parental allowance. Heady times... in fact spent in going to arthouse films , going to museums and flirting with a friend’s cousin sur la rive droite.

That same friend with the attractive cousin also had a relative with a connection to the British Council. During my stay the Council put on French junket for the then new poet laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis.

I cannot now remember how, but we teenagers were give an invitation to a reception for CDL, held in a ludicrously Roccoco apartment on the Isle Saint Louis. Huge staircases; murals and ceilings depicting gods chasing nymphs, or battles, or nobility being noble. But despite this artistic intimidation, this was an opportunity for priggery not to be missed. I was well aware of CDL as left-wing poet of the Auden generation- indeed the one who actually joined the Communist Party. I was also aware of his journey away from the heady ideological certainties of the ‘30s: as the essay on CDL for the Poetry Foundation puts it:

In the post war years [CDL] received the kind of academic and official laurels reserved for poets who live long enough to be regarded as tamed.

(The essay goes on to suggest that the “only faith left” to CDL was a “romantic faith in poetry itself”.)

So I had no trouble in hitting on a strategy for the reception. I had “done” Wordsworth for English A level. He had moved from youthful radicalism to Grand Old Man status. I knew  Browning’s poem, “The Lost Leader”, written to non-celebrate Wordsworth’s acceptance of the laureateship. In particular I remembered ( and still do) the opening lines:

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick on his  coat..

Wouldn’t it be fun ( or perhaps I, being earnest, vaguely thought it a cultural duty) to quote Browning’s lines to CDL and ask if he agreed that they applied equally to him? ( At age 18 this idea struck me as wonderfully original- it didn’t occur to me that others may have got there first.)

And that is what I did. Somehow (doubtless lacking at that age any social antenna telling me how to behave in the presence of a British Council celebrity guest) I managed to insinuate myself into CDL’s presence. He was at first agreeable in the pleasant but perfunctory way which eminent persons adopt with youngsters. But I immediately blurted out my question: “Do you think the lines [Browning quote] apply to you ?” He looked at me ( I won’t now invent the character of that look) and snapped: “Never heard of them” and turned away. To this day (forgive pun) I have not believed him. However, by then he didn’t care about Browinng –style criticism, especially when recycled by a recent schoolboy. Metaphorically, I was just a callow placard-waver who had got through security.

JLC July 2014

Dual Nationality

DUAL NATIONALITY

“Dual nationality” is a peculiar status. One can understand how – from migration, from cross-border  marriages or from cross-border births. Indeed its existence reflects a reasonably healthy mixture of chauvinism and tolerance: “Anyone born on our soil is ours, regardless of parentage; anyone born elsewhere from one of ours is ours, regardless of geography”.

But there is also a fundamental contradiction. The essence of an individual’s nationality includes reciprocal loyalties between citizen and state (We, the State, will protect you and sometimes even cherish you; You, the citizen, shall obey our laws and sometimes serve you, even in the military). How can you pledge loyalty to two states, even if they are often joined at the hip (which is only likely to apply contingently)?

The dilemma is especially acute in the case of naturalisation- an individual applying to become the citizen of a new state, being already by birth the citizen of another. Naturalisation involves a formal process, including an Oath of Allegiance in the case of the United States. This Oath includes renunciation of other allegiances, which is logical_ but what if the individual’s birth nationality still persists?

I am the child of a British father ( born in Imperial India and whose father was born in the south of C19 Ireland, but let that particular complication of nationalities pass) and a US mother. She to her dying day had only US citizenship. (In her early married life she thought that she would return to the US if she were widowed (which she was); but her increasingly left wing political views meant that the attraction of her native country receded to vanishing point.)

In 1969, on gap year, I was to visit my US relatives on an extended tour, to include what would now be called work experience in my uncle’s engineering firm in Boise, Idaho.

I held a UK passport. It was the common  understanding that I needed a US visa, so I presented myself one morning, aged 18, at the consular section of the US embassy in Grosvenor Square in London.

There were a lot of visa applicants already sitting in the waiting area. I resigned to a long day, after handing in my paperwork at the reception desk. But only a short while later a consular person came out. “Mr Crosthwait? Please come with me.”. I was surprised; embarrassed of course. Was there some awful error or red-line disclosure in my application which needed to be officially dealt without delay, such was the affront of allowing it to persist a moment longer?

I was led down some corridors and shown into the office of a youngish consular official. He sat behind a large desk. Behind him an even larger Stars and Stripes flag was fixed to the wall. To one side near the window sat an unobtrusive stenographer or secretary.

The consular man was, of course, crew-cut and, of course, wore steel-framed spectacles. But he was affable. “Mr Crosthwait, I am afraid we cannot grant your request for a visa.” I goggled at him- what was the terrible unknown fault  in the face of which my US mother, lack of criminal convictions and future university studies in England counted for nothing? He went on, obviously enjoying himself a little. “The reason is: you, Mr Crosthwait are an American citizen. To travel to the States you require a US passport.”

This was unexpected. My thought was: this could be good news- easier entry, certainly; maybe easier to get a summer job? But would there be a catch? Yes- in fact there were two.

The consular man turned and gestured at the Flag. “We need you to swear allegiance to the United States”.  There was a pause.  Then the recent sixth form intellectual prig in me jumped into action. I said: “I am not sure I can do that in all conscience. I’ve always regarded myself as British. If there were ever any kind of conflict between the US and the UK, my loyalties would be with the UK”.

There was another pause. Had I destroyed my citizenship before it had got started? Would I be denied a passport for being a potential traitor, but still refused a visa because I wasn’t an alien?

What happened next was unexpected. The consular man walked round from behind his desk. “Mr Crosthwait”, he said earnestly, “You are  a fine, moral young man. I respect your principles”. He shook my hand, turned to the secretary and asked her to type up a statement explaining the absence of an oath of allegiance in my case. I signed, wondering at my “victory”.

(I have since come to the view that the oath business was not strictly a condition of my citizenship. I was a citizen by birth- that is, I had always been a US citizen and the right to a passport automatically followed. Oaths are for people seeking to be naturalised as citizens of a new country. So perhaps the consular man in my case was indulging in a bit of theatre, easily stepped back from. Or so I believe.)

Was that it? No, there was one more thing. Without instruction, the secretary, after typing my apologia, had started typing on a small cardboard form. Just before the friendly and admiring consular man showed me out, he handed part of the form to me. I looked down at it. It was my very own Draft Registration Card for the US military.

I left without burning.

Dementia et Furor

DEMENTIA et FUROR

One evening in December we went to St George’s, Hanover Square, in Mayfair for a carol service in aid of Dementia UK. The church was grand early C18, the small choir excellent and the congregation mainly well-heeled and middle aged (the two categories largely but not entirely overlapping).

Unlike many “social” charity events, there  was not a huge gap between the circumstances of the givers and those of the beneficiaries. There was probably no one there who isn’t, or won’t be, or hasn’t been affected by the disease in one capacity or another.

Sally Magnusson, who has written about the suffering of her mother, spoke. She said that, whilst the progress of dementia is unutterably saddening, one should not be frightened that the loved one who has the disease is going to be irretrievably lost as the person she or he once was. There is always a flickering flame, however tiny, of a self which responds to care and love. (Is that true?)

After the service, the evening continued agreeably with a supper party at the home of the friends who had invited us to the carols. Somewhere near 11pm we caught a taxi for the journey back across north London.

The cabby was slight, quiet man. We debated the route (was Camden town to be avoided?) but finally found ourselves on Adelaide  Road  in Chalk Farm, crawling towards the traffic lights by the Tube station.

Just before the station there is a Zebra crossing in two sections, divided by a traffic island. Our taxi came to stop, in traffic, on the northern section.

A second later, a short wiry man was at the cabby’s window, shouting: “ You fucking give way on a crossing!..You fucking give way on a crossing!..”

I was on the other side of the cab, and for a moment thought that our driver had nudged across the crossing when the man was already on it. But it seems that he had come forward from the central reservation to be baulked by the queuing cab.

No matter. The man was in a fury. He shouted at the driver: “Get out!” and pulled at the door handle, which the driver had swiftly locked. His fury escalated. He kicked the cab. Then, suddenly, he exploded in a flurry of punches against the driver’s window, all the while shouting variants of “get out” and “you fucking give way”.

The punches were delivered ferociously, with bare fists, at the level of the driver’s head. We could see the window buckle, but not break. The poor driver sat inches away from this assault.

We were locked in the passenger cabin. It was like being in a Perspex shark cage witnessing an attack on a twinned cage. We felt horror and helplessness.

The man then moved to the front of the cab (still stationary), where he stood with his arms spread out in a “stop” gesture. I wondered whether he was going to attack the windscreen. But what happened next was more shocking than what had already occurred. He came back to the driver’s window, still shouting. Then, suddenly, he drove his forehead hard against the glass with a horrid thump. Again, the glass flexed, but held.

The man must have grievously hurt both fist and head. He gave no sign of pain; but now finally lurched off. The taxi was released by a green traffic light and moved away.

Our cabby was in a state of shock. So too, but obviously to a lesser extent, were we. After a few hundred metres he pulled over and said he could not continue with our fare.

Two sides of  “madness”  were encountered that evening: dementia, where one’s senses take slow but inevitable leave of one; and Furor (in the Latin) where one takes leave of one’s senses.

Sometimes, in classical mythology, the Gods caused Furor. In Chalk Farm, it is likely other substances.

The next day I checked the Highway Code. It says that, in queuing  traffic, a vehicle should leave a crossing clear, which our cab did not do. So the furious assailant, intent on causing grievous bodily harm, had a little bit of right on his side.

December 2014