Picture: Hemera

Funerals for the Forgotten

Tuesday August 12 2014

Jackie Macadam learns more about ‘public health’ funerals for those who have no friends or family to arrange their final journey.

“I ALWAYS find it deeply spiritual. This was a person.”

The Rev Dr Derek Browning is talking about so-called ‘public health’ funerals: a funeral for someone who has no relatives, no friends and no one to pay for their interment and becomes the responsibility of the local council.

“I’ve done maybe a dozen of these throughout my years as a minister,” says Derek. “It’s one of the last vestiges of the old parish system and it’s one of our duties as a parish minister. I suppose it depends on the parish you work in, but thankfully they are fairly rare nowadays.”

It’s something many ministers are asked to do, and something that offers the chance to show the last vestige of human respect to someone who – either through their own determination or by accident – has largely been forgotten by the rest of society.

Ministers feel the very real emotions of pain and sadness for the lack of people there to bid the person farewell – and yet they also feel a great sense of honour and privilege at being able to perform this last service for someone known to God and not forgotten by Him.

The Rev Shuna Dicks from Aberlour says it is a kind of service she finds emotional.

“I find this kind of service terribly sad – and thankfully they are rare here. I have only conducted one.

 “Preparing is difficult. If there is no family then it can be difficult to glean any background to the person – although I think now after being here a few years, if asked to do another service like this, I would know a few folks to ask for any info or who’d be able to tell me where to get the information.

“As it happened, some relatives did turn up for the service as well as some neighbours and the man from the council who had done the bulk of the organising. The undertakers were really good and to be honest, you wouldn’t have known it was a council funeral if you had been looking on.”

Coming in to a funeral ‘cold’ can be problematic and calls for some sleuthing on the part of ministers.

The Rev Dorothy Granger, of Ardrossan: Barony St John’s, recalls a funeral that fell in to this category.

“It was for an elderly gentleman who had died in hospital. He had no family living that could be found. I was given his name, date of birth and death and no other information.

 “I put together a short affirming service which focused on God’s love and care, and his intimate knowledge of the individual. I arrived early at the crematorium to see if any mourners had turned up – fortunately three people did plus a taxi driver who came in for the service, so there were six of us including the organist.

“I spent a few minutes with the three friends who had been neighbours and drinking buddies and from them got an idea of who he was and the name he was known by. I felt at least then, during the service, he was called by the name he used in life and not his given name.

“It was a very poignant service and the three people there were obviously fond of the deceased. I was honoured to officiate for this man at the end of his life.”

It seems sad that in this day and age, people are still buried by the state, with no one left to mourn them.

But it is clear that to parish ministers, and those who mark the passing of an individual at the end of their lives, the service to them is still seen not just as a duty, but as an honour.

The full version of this article was first published in August's Life and Work. Subscribe