Working Funerals - Driving in cortege WNBull style

The car I was assigned, WNB004
or 'Kevin' as I called him.

    It's been a while since I posted, I've just been too busy and too distracted to write.  But it's about time I got back into it, and what better way than writing about my favourite part of the funeral!  Driving in cortege.

    A while ago I wrote a post about how to drive in cortege from a mourners perspective.  This is my promised follow up from an undertakers perspective

Carrying a Child Coffin

    As odd as it sounds to many I have been attending funerals in my spare time.  It is part of my ethnographic work into the funeral industry and the funeral process.  To learn through observation and participation as much as literary research (which there is little of for this industry).

    So recently I was at a child's funeral and the way they carried the coffin was quite surprising, and a little worrying.

The Transfer Stretcher

    Lately I have been updating my transfer posts and pages such as this one.  Fixing the formatting, correcting mistakes, adding more information and so on.  In doing so I have realised that there is no post and little information about the transfer stretcher.  This is something that needs fixing as the stretcher is such an important part of the industry.

Identity tags

Various coloured wrist tags.

    There is a common belief that in the funeral industry they use toe tags to identify the dead.  We see it all the time on TV and it is part of common language.  Yet this is not the case and would be rather impractical.  Here I explain how we actually identify a body and why this is the method we use and why we must use it.

Between Death & the Funeral: The last trip

    I recently got a question about how bodies are processed in Sydney.  As in what happens to the dead between death and the funeral.  It is a rather interesting question many of us never think of.

    So far I have found nobody has an issue with knowing the details (so long as they are not too graphic) about what happens.  In fact most people are rather interested in it.  However many think of this as a 'taboo' subject.  Well, actually that is not quite true, people think others think death is taboo.  They themselves do not see it as taboo or something to avoid but think most other people do.  As such they avoid this topic to avoid offending or upsetting people.

    We do not avoid this topic because it is taboo.  We avoid it to avoid upsetting others.  And we also know so little about it.  How does your water make it into your tap?  Something most cannot answer, not because it is taboo or upsetting but because they simply do not know.

Death & Sex Difference

    I always find the sex difference with death to be quite interesting.  That women live longer and men are more likely to die young.  Thus I thought it was time for a little bit of social sciences and statistics.  In this post I look briefly at differences in deaths related to sex.  I do not look at race or location, although there are some interesting numbers there.

American & Australian Style Lowering

    I found this American product video demonstrating two automatic lowering devices for the graveside.  It made me think of the difference between American funeral and Australian funerals.  Many conductors here in Australia do not like the American lowering system.  Continue on for the video!

Funeral Fun - Broken down in the cemetery

    A breakdown is never a fun thing.  Especially in the funeral industry.  Even more so in a cemetery during a funeral!  But this is exactly what happened one hot summer day.

    This is the story of how our hearse broke down in a cemetery, during a funeral, and how a gravedigger came to our rescue.

Survey Reminder

    If you haven't already done so I would like to as people to answer my short survey.  It shouldn't take too long and I would greatly appreciate the answers.  Either way thank you for participating and thank you for reading this blog :)

>> Click here to do the survey << (if you have trouble clicking here the link is also at the end).

    As always the responses will be anonymous and confidential!!  But if there are any issues or questions about the survey feel free to contact me.

    So far the answers are proving to be very interesting and somewhat surprising.  When I get more responses I can put the data together and make a detailed post about it.  For example almost everyone has attended over 5 funerals.  This trend remains stable across all age groups, the young and old have generally been to more than 5 funerals.  This is surprising to me as I expected most people would have been to 2-4 funerals.  Also that almost nobody remembers the funeral home who took care of the most recent funeral they attended.

    These are just a few of many interesting and surprising results.  So if I can get more data perhaps I can discover even more!

~~

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFV5TlFvaF80ZGxUU3Z6ejFvcndzRHc6MQ

Attending a Funeral - Driving in cortege

    I that i tend to get questions following my posts on how to attend funerals.  People appear nervous, unsure and generally hesitant.  Who can blame them, funerals are a tense thing to the inexperienced and many of us are inexperienced with them.  Thus I thought a few posts detailing the mist important or tricky parts of the funeral could help.  Starting with one of the most difficult and stressful parts for many mourners, driving in cortege.

    Driving in cortege is the act of following a hearse (or any other lead car).  You will be driving quickly and closely behind a hearse or other cars.  This makes it tricky and worrying.  Yet this was my favourite part of working funerals.  It can be quite easy and simple as long as you think ahead and apply some common sense.

    This post is for mourners, however I will write another post about hot to drive in cortege as a funeral director.  This is because driving as a mourner and as an undertaker are very different.  Comparing both posts might be interesting or helpful.  I do go over driving a funeral car in this post here.  But I want another new posts focusing on driving in cortege.

Anyway, here is how to drive in a cortege from a mourners perspective: