Service with a smile

Thus departed Hiawatha,

Hiawatha the Beloved,

In the glory of the sunset,

In the purple mists of evening,

To the regions of the home-wind,

Of the North-West wind, Keewaydin,

To the islands of the blessed,

To the Kingdom of Ponemah,

To the Land of the Hereafter!

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Hiawatha FOR nearly two hours we have been discussing life and death, the latter mostly, with Michael Wright. He has firm views on it – very much more than just passing thoughts – that may chime with a great many. Most of all, he’s anxious for what might almost be called “good” funerals.

For 37 years he was an Anglican priest, his calling to ordination almost as big a surprise to him – “I was a pain in the neck to the RE teacher, I went around trying to debunk things” – as it was to his father, a lifelong non-believer.

The young doubter was just 17, a cub reporter – no less – on the Shrewsbury Chronicle when he had what he terms “an experience of God.”

He was baptised, started attending a “lively” church, agreed to the curate’s suggestion that he put himself forward for the ministry and was no less surprised to be accepted.

His father? “He hit the roof,” he says.

He was a curate in Gloucestershire, became curate and then vicar of Kirkbymoorside and surrounding parishes in North Yorkshire, was vicar of Ormesby, part-time priestin- charge of Newport, Middlesbrough, while helping set up the Disabled Information Centre at Middlesbrough General Hospital, then part-time chaplain to the Butterwick Hospice and, a trained counsellor, set up a support network for Cleveland County Council.

His father died in 1990, several years after his mother. Michael, still chaplain at Butterwick, was asked to lead a non-religious service. The committal was to lines from Hiawatha.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

At the doorway of his wigwam,

In the pleasant summer morning,

Hiawatha stood and waited…

“It was a liberating moment,” he says. “A mould had been broken; the parameters of the funeral service had gone.”

SOON word got around that the priest was available for non-religious funerals as well as the Christian valedictions. “The rural dean and local clergy knew about it,”

he recalls. “It just so happened the bishop didn’t.”

He did soon enough. When Michael wrote to funeral directors promoting his availability, one of that fastidious fraternity forwarded the letter to both the Bishop of Whitby and the Archbishop of York.

“I was carpeted,” recalls Michael, 71. “The Bishop of Whitby gave me an ultimatum. If I didn’t agree to stop, I’d lose my licence to officiate.

I’d taken an oath of canonical obedience, so I reluctantly agreed, but I was uncomfortable about saying solemn Christian words for those who didn’t want them.”

Soon, however, he could no longer rest in peace. Bereaved families were holding “church” funerals because they might not understand the alternatives, many clergy were going through a ritual, if not quite through the motions, some – humanist officiants, too – couldn’t even get right the name of the deceased.

Michael left the Church of England – “I didn’t feel I belonged any more, I came to realise I was in the wrong place” – becoming a Quaker ten years ago.

He now offers “individually designed”

services – “civil” funerals – if not exactly made-to-measure then distinctly bespoke and entirely suitable.

He talks still of sensitivity and of pastoral responsibility.

Much of what he does reflects the change of funeral focus from anticipating the next life to celebrating the one just ended.

“I’ve noticed in the last ten years that many don’t even sing hymns like Abide With Me any more.

They’re uncomfortable with it.”

Some still want a religious service, some a religious input, others nothing religious at all. “I seek accurately to reflect the mix of faith, hope, unbelief, love and grief which those closest to the person who has died wish for in the funeral,” he says.

“Most clergy follow the prescribed liturgy in their service book, some with little reference to the life of the person who has died. Some have a ‘parsonical’ voice that can make the whole thing sound pompous and impersonal.

People are left lost and angry when that happens”

Though these things are in no way intended to be the late, late show, he also believes that “gentle” humour – service with a smile – can be appropriate, too.

He has included Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu prayers, once even planned and led a Rastafarian service.

“The family couldn’t find a Rastafarian minister and the local vicar didn’t want to know. The chap had been obsessed with Bob Marley, his room was a shrine to him. I borrowed a couple of his books and tried to find out what it was all about. Some of his family were Christians, so there was a Christian element, too.”

Even that, however, may have been less of a surprise than the terminal cancer sufferer who the other day asked Michael not just to lead his funeral but to organise the wake – with the poor chap present – beforehand.

It’ll be held in a village hall near Middlesbrough – a choir, musicians, poetry, food and drink. “It’ll be rather like This is Your Life,” says Michael. “I’m sure it’ll be emotional but it’s intended also to be a fitting occasion. He’s paying for it all, anyway.”

HE still lives in Middlesbrough, attends Quaker meetings and some Roman Catholic services, retains a regard for the CofE.

Word of his services is spreading.

The service is exactly what the bereaved want, from poetry to paintings.

Most are at the crematorium or graveside; one was at the Preston Hall museum. He’ll talk for hours to find out more about the deceased, offers a portfolio of possible readings from Christina Rosetti to Chief Crowfoot, from Shakespeare to Joyce Grenfell.

The 23rd Psalm and the Parable of the Good Samaritan are in there, too.

“I ask about everything – what the person liked, his favourite songs, his hobbies, colours, sayings, anything.

It’s the journalistic thing, I suppose.”

The journalistic thing, too, he even offers to write an obituary for the local paper.

His brochure’s explicit. “Every opportunity is taken to ensure that each funeral is individually designed to meet the needs of those closest to the person who has died with small touches that can be so meaningful.”

His own funeral is already planned, too. There’ll be Mozart’s Horn Concerto, a bit of Beethoven’s Pastoral, some of the Peer Gynt suite by Grieg. There’ll be “nuances of religion,” he says.

The poetry may be George Eliot. Hiawatha, eternally, was for his dad.

■ For further information on Funeral Services Individually Designed, visit teesvoice.me.uk, call 01642-851919 or email michael.wright80@virgin.net

The finer points

AFTER Matt Bendelow, the one-legged postman of Bowes, last week’s column recalled George Vitty, the one-armed postman of Harperley and Fir Tree. Like Matt Bendelow, George had been seriously wounded in the First World War; like Matt, he didn’t let his disability stop him delivering.

Lynette Webster lived with her parents in the Harperley station house, her father a signalman until the box on the Bishop Auckland to Wearhead line closed in 1958. She remembers George from childhood days in the 1950s.

“He’d come into our house, presumably to wait for the train, and obviously his missing arm was a source of curiosity to me. I remember asking how he lost it, and he said that the cat had bitten it off.

“Amongst all the other animals, we had a couple of cats which I looked on as my pets. After that declaration I was always very careful not to upset them in any way. I didn’t want to lose my arm.”

THE splendid David Charlesworth, who started this continuing mail shot several months ago, has even discovered the old Harperley line train timetable. The station was at the end of a private road to Harperley Hall, later a Durham Constabulary training headquarters. It also served the prisoner of war camp up the road.

Mail would be despatched from Darlington on the 5.40am, met by George at Harperley at 6.44am. His long trek around the neighbouring farms and villages complete, he’d be back to meet the second delivery at 12.20pm. Those guys stood by their post.

DAVE Quinn, man about Howdenle- Wear and former district councillor, was a member of the 2nd Fir Tree Scouts led by George Vitty. They met, he recalls, in a clay-floored Nissen hut warmed by a pot-bellied stove and lit by Tilley lamps.

George not only taught them first-aid, cooking and camping, but knots too – “demonstrated with one hand and his teeth”.

Dave was the only Fir Tree member to become a first class scout. “Neville Lee, our patrol leader, passed every stage but, try as he might, could never learn to swim.”

George was 72 when he took them camping. “We slept in an old army bell tent, dug our own latrine and cooked on our own fire. “We had a wonderful week but on the last morning Mr Vitty wasn’t his usual cheerful self. When he scraped his shin on a stile, he actually shouted ‘Bugger’.

“As I got older it dawned on me that, at 72, he probably thought it was his last week under canvas. He was a remarkable man.”

NORMAN Tweddle, who’ll be 88 in November, remembers Matt Bendelow from happy days in Bowes workmen’s club – “just one leg, maybe, but good as owt on the billiard table”.

Norman’s now in Eppleby, between Darlington and Richmond. “Matt took a liking to me. I used to let his New Year in and he said it brought him luck.

“I got called up for the RAF in 1942 and he sent me ten bob at Christmas, a lot of money in those days. I never did write to thank him for it. I know it’s a bit late, but I’d like to do it now.”

POSTED on April 1, delivered here on Tuesday, a letter arrives from Bill Giles in New South Wales. Bill’s an expat, missing the finer points of English culture, trying to explain egg jarping to the natives in his club overlooking Botany Bay.

If not exactly pear-shaped, his efforts proved ovoid. He turned to the internet and was delighted to find – headlined “Jarp practice” – last year’s John North report on the annual World Jarping Championship held at Peterlee Sports and Social Club.

Rules explained, Bill represented the old country in a head-to-head with the distinctly hard-boiled Lawrie Kane, for Oz. Roy Castle was “neutral” umpire: England, alas, were beaten into submission.

Bill wonders what happens next. “We’re not yet requesting test match status, merely looking on it as an exhibition game. Lawrie wants to know if he’s supposed to get a blazer, or something.”

Meanwhile back in Peterlee, only 19 contested the world title, far fewer than usual and suggesting that things may no longer be all they were cracked up to be. Mark Winter, Sparky to his mates, is number one egg, nonetheless.

…and finally,

last week’s piece on the championship-winning Ferryhill Town Band – conducted by Sue Norris – was remiss not to mention the support of Ferryhill Town Council and the local public. “They’ve both been tremendous,” says Peter Atkinson. A high note on which to end – the column returns in a fortnight.