Conducting funerals: first secure your trousers…

I have three black suits. One is wool, two are various forms of electrically charged hydrocarbon byproduct. One is in Ayrshire, just in case. Two are here in Shetland

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I tend to wear the waistcoat from one and the jacket and trousers from the other. The waistcoat is a Slater’s Menswear one with an ecclesiastical purple lining. The lower half of that suit, bought for me by the local funeral directors, is too loose now. You only need your breeks to start descending once while conducting a graveside service. Since that desperate, one-handed moment on the island of Yell (slightly distracted by anxious otters bleating on the nearby beach), I have always worn belt and braces with my favourite Matalan polystatic two-piece. It cost £30 and is the best fit I’ve ever had. 

It’s sort of fashionable, with narrow trouser bottoms that befit those sleek, narrow shoes you see young folk sporting. I have suitably pointy brogues but tend to wear blunt, black imitation Doc Martens with commando soles. You need grip in a winter Shetland graveyard (the council has recently banned funereal access to its cemeteries after 1.00pm: too dark at this time of year), especially if you’re helping lower the coffin. Tumbling in is not an option. It has happened, though not to me. Not yet.

You can find yourself trudging through long grass, mud, heather or beach sand, opening croftland track gates for a bottoming-out hearse, or standing in a howling gale, watched by the ghosts of Vikings and the monks they murdered, trying to shout current comfort into the wind

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There’s no point in compromise for appearance’s sake. I have a Swedish Didriksen padded coat capable of keeping Odin, Frigg, Baldr and all their meteorological spells at bay. So far, they’ve kept their distance.

Funerals can be conducted by anyone. There’s no licence or training needed, no qualification. I urge you to to do it yourself if you can. Or if you’re going to be dead, plan it, insist on it, tell others what you want. Because once you’re dead, you’re silent. And as an undertaker once told me, the dead have no rights. Don’t find yourself trying to scream from the afterlife of your choice: “NOT DANIEL O’DONNELL…”

I help with funerals because I can. All those years of writing and telling stories, of standing up and speaking out loud must be good for something. There’s no judgement and no restriction on faith or the lack of it. I will pray, affirm, bless, curse or blaspheme as required. And there’s no charge.

And I will try to dress correctly. Appropriately. According to the old Russian proverb: there’s no such thing as bad weather. Only bad clothes.