AIBU to not "get" mass public mourning?

[BabyMummy29]

Thinking of the sad case of the little boy in Edinburgh at the moment, but on so many occasions nowadays people leave flowers, toys etc when they didn't even know the person concerned,

Wouldn't they be better spending the money on a donation to a charity.

I just don't get it at all. Fair enough if you knew the person involved. but not otherwise.

It certainly happened after the Soham murders - I remember reading about it. I haven't met anyone who has done this, although I met several people who travelled 300miles to wail in the Mall after Diana died

You're clearly never heard of the 'Death Hags' then? Gruesome and morbid 'stories' and pictures of the famous deceased... www.findadeath.com/

Some people are fascinated by death, possibly because it's the final taboo? I don't know, it's not my thing but my brother whiles away many a pleasant hour on this site. You've been warned.

It's not an urban myth. Someone who lives in or near to Soham on this thread said it happened there when those poor girls were murdered.

It is those people who make people like me raise an eyebrow at this kind of stuff. But tbh, as long as someone is getting comfort and it isn't intruding on a family's grief, I am really not that bothered. I do think lines need to be drawn though.

www.findadeath.com/Deceased/p/Princess%20Di/diana_princess_of_wales.htm... for the Princess Diana 'fans'.

YouTheCat, not an urban myth at all, I agree. There are very morbid 'tours' available, not necessarily advertised because most people would baulk at even the idea of them.

No my friend is a 'death hag' she's really into Victorian death pics etc and has her own website with them on BUT that is in no way the same as mawkishly taping a cheap teddy to a lamppost while weeping tears over the loss or someone you never knew

yes I read about it too and didn't believe it to be honest.a few wierd ones don't constitute organised coach tours.

it may be a few wire dies stopping their cars in Soham but I simply don't believe a coach company would organise this.

I haven't met anyone who has done anything like that, either, I don't think.

I dunno. I'd rather see a hundred 'rest with the angles lil man' messages than one 'hope you rot'. And responses of similar ilk. Mawkish overblown and attention seeking it may be, but at least it's coming from a humane compassionate place. Or at least a place that honours humanity and compassion, even if expressed wrongly or for the wrong reasons. The alternative places are indifference or viciousness.

As an aside there is a long cultural tradition of murder mysteries and those awful True Crime magazines. I wonder if there's a connection.

X-post - Never heard of death hag etc but might fit in with the true crime etc that I mentioned

I imagine some people do go and stare at Soham or 25 Cromwell Street or Denis Nilssen's flat and I'd find that to be nature's way of telling me to stay away.

But lots of people? Coach trips? Are you sure?

And though I was no Diana fan, I didn't find it at all odd that people came from hundreds if not thousands of miles to be in London for her funeral. It was a very special occasion.

Another rubbernecking thing I'm going to admit to now - I stood in Whitehall to watch Margaret Thatcher's hearse whisk by.

It's near where I live and I wanted to make sure she was dead.

Limited, had I been nearer, I'd have wanted to make certain too.

Someone upthread did mention coach trips.

That's a step too far for me; you wanted to make sure she was dead? Did they stop and lift the lid for you? I understand you didn't like her but she was a human being and I find that 'celebratory' thing quite grotesque really. Doesn't accord with the 'tender heart' posts really.

For me, she was a politician, made good and bad decisions with a cabinet around her, was a wife and mum. She has family still living.

I guess everybody finds their 'level'.

Limited Wasn't 25 Cromwell St (and 10 Rillington Place) demolished to stop it becoming a shrine for rubber neckers?

What I found interesting at the time of Diana's death was the howls from the emotionally incontinent masses and the press that her surviving children should be paraded about and almost forced to prostitute their grief, to be seen to joining in the whole mawkish exercise, rather than being allowed to grieve in private (unlike the self indulgent crowds who were merely crying crocodile tears for a woman they'd never met.)

I am no fan of the Royal family, but I think in about forty or fifty years time, historians will be asking 'what the fuck happened there and why were those boys put through that public spectacle.

youthecat I was standing very close to the Parliament Square end between two US tourists, two French ones and a group of very giggly people from what I believe was the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

After her hearse went by the FCO workers said it was nice that no one was disrespectful. I feel the Blessed Margaret might have had stern words for civil servants who'd fucked off from their desks in order to gawp.

Though she probably would have approved of the tourists clutching Starbucks cups.

I remained catsbum throughout

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe It was going too fast for me to lift the lid.

And no, I'm not a tender heart. Though I drew the line at making any comment. It was a funeral, after all.

Compo, couldn't agree more with that.

It's always rather sad I think that when threads about death and grief are started on mn (there seems to have been a spate of them recently) people think it's an excellent opportunity to point score, goad, make insults and to generally be thoroughly unpleasant. Do you really think you can argue someone round to your way of thinking when it comes to personal responses and beliefs about death?

Because what happens after death is unknown this uncertainty creates a range of responses in different people.
Because death in this country is a largely hidden medicalised event, whereas once it would have occurred within both a family and their close community, people are now exhibiting different behaviours in order to find a common ground in which to explore their feelings about death and dying. This is perfectly natural and normal. The references to quiet 'Victorian' mourning are interesting because, of course that was the socially conditioned response for that time. Do people think that we have always been quiet and respectful at funerals? Plenty of cultures in this world would think silent grief and death ceremonies decidedly odd.
Are they wrong too?

I don't think standing to watch a funeral cortege pass by is gawping

i yacht agreed with some threads here and found some a but ott but it's been a fascinating thread for me.

I think the most reassuring thing for me is they people don't really change, there have always been ghouls and idiots but the vast majority of people are decent and good.

look at twitter, hopefully the person who jade disgusting comments is charged.

I know it winds some people up and it can be unsettling but would rather see flowers and teddies rather than hate and ignoring of a dreadful event.

SlubberdeGulliion excellent excellent post.

composhat I didn't approve of the demand that Diana's boys should be brought to London to appease the crowds.

But I'm not sure that these things haven't happened in the past and won't happen in future.

Louis XIV of France was dragged out before the crowds in Paris riots aged five to prove he was alive. That calmed them.

Watching Diana's funeral on telly was quite good for getting a sense of perspective - though my mind did wander during her brother's speech and I kind of missed the point and was only dragged back to it when I heard cheering and applause.

I've never been a very good reporter. But then he's never been a very good human being

I remember when the gun carriage (it was a gun carriage, wasn't it, or am I imagining that?) came out of Kensington Palace a woman wailed: 'Diiiaaaanaaa!'.

It was horrible.

Later that day I saw a German photographer, professional or not, who asked permission of two girls to take their picture looking at flowers at Westminster Abbey and them snarling at him. He was nice. They were disgusting and just indulging themselves with the fantasy that the paparazzi murdered her.

Mrs T's funeral is interesting because the gap between old/new ways of showing respect were highlighted in the BBC commentary.

At one point, spectators started clapping the hearse. This was mentioned with disapproval as the commentator thought it was done by 'dance on her grave' protestors. It wasn't. Just a section of the crowd who thought it was a good way of showing approval of her achievements. Then it was reported with horror that these protestors had actually thrown stuff at the hearse and frightened the horses. But it was people trying to throw flowers, as happened with Diana. They corrected it later in the commentary.

Applause at funerals or instead of a minute's silence is sometimes a way of drowning out dissent.

It's popular at football matches. I do get tired at the footballing community's mawkish enthusiasm for observing a minute's tribute for everything fucking thing so might be tempted to jeer if I went.

I certainly got irritated by my company's klaxon for a minute's silence for the 2004 tsunami. It was terrible. But why more terrible than other things?

I wouldn't jeer at Margaret Thatcher's funeral, or Tony Blair's when that comes.

I don't don't heckle funerals but I can see why some people might make an exception in certain circumstances.

I also don't think Thatcher would be that fussed. In fact, I think she'd feel sadder to be dismissed as a benign figure.

It was Diana which started all this wasn't it.

I still remember kensington gardens, people never really left tributes before that.

I mentioned Soham upthread. To clarify, one adult and one child, travelling hundreds of miles by train (not organised coach) to lay flowers for someone he had never met, and hadn't heard of ten days earlier. What for? So he could say he had been?

I find the earlier explanation that it's a "thank Fuck not me/mine" thing compelling. Need to Google "atavistic" though.