Respect for dead "at all time low"

[varicoseveined]

here

That's pretty cold, madamez. I'm not a fan of over-weening sentimentality, but briefly acknowledging the death of another human being isn't exactly a public menace.

This is why i am glad to be old fashioned.

I have been brought up to have respect and compassion for other people.

And i will be bringing up my DD's to be the same whether it holding the door open for someone or be respectfull to greiving strangers.

If more people had respect for others then perhaps we would have a better society.

I quite agree suebaroo. I found the whole Princess Diana thing mawkish and false to a large extent. But just because you don't have a direct relationship to the dead does not mean that you can't acknowledge and show respect for the sorrow of another human being who had been bereaved. It's something that will hit us all at some time in our lives.

Charlie - the undertakers special errand, they have been sent to get a dear departed dead person and use the compartment as a resting place untill they reach the undertakers home where the dear departed is made more comfortable for the journey onwards.

NOt read the whole thread...but whilst I do believe that of course respect is due....maybe this sort of old fashioned tradition is "outdated".
But then, I come from Germany, where this tradition doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that we do not respect the dead or those left behind, it just is a matter of a different tradition.If that makes sense.
However, fwiw...I do respect teh traditions of this country and would therefore find it disrespectful to do not show the courtesy of stopping and letting a hearse past, etc...!

THe thing is, this whole fuss has sprung up over a piece in the farking Telegraph, that bastion of truth and common sense. It's just a few anecdotes from whiners who think that everyone should defer to them because they are so special. Most people will stop and get out of the way of a cortege. Those few who don't will generally be the ones who do have a really pressing, urgent need to be somewhere else. Why should their feelings, wishes and desires be less important than those of a bereaved stranger? Imagine it was you, desperate to get to your best friend who is seriously ill and asking for you/frantic to get to the moneylenders so you can pick up the loan that will stop your house being repossessed - and then you have to wait while 65 carloads of mourners bumble past the junction at 5 miles an hour.
IN busy urban areas where there are lots of people who did not know the deceased and do not know the bereaved, surely people could have satisfactory funerals without needing to hold up the traffic to this extent. Objecting to dawling corteges is not the same as hanging around outside the crem showing your arse to the mourners, after all.

fwiw, in Germany, the funeral begins at the cemetry/crematerium (sp?)...the service will be held there and then the body will eihter be buried or burned...

madamez - I hope that when misfortune comes to you - as it does to every one of us at some time - you will have someone to turn to for help. I hope that if you are attending the funeral of a much loved relative - no driver tries to pass the procession. The example you give of a driver needing to help with debt problems - well after my son was given a dignified funeral, we both got made redundant and GUESS WHAT our house was repossessed. So you can see what I mean about misfortune.

I do realise I am going on and on......but your attitude has angered me more than anyone I have spoken to for many years.

Shabster: THing is, if I was on my way to a funeral (and the last funeral I attended I went to by bus) I wouldn;t give a flying fuck if someone needed to get past. What's it to me? Why should I assume that because I'm suffering a bereavement, the whole word owes me total indulgence of my every whim?
THis is not a matter of saying that the bereaved should not be allowed to hold funerals, or not mind if actual funeral ceremonies are interrupted by passers by, merely pointing out that causing a traffic obstruction is perhaps a funeral tradition that should become as obsolete as smashing every mirror in the house or refusing to bath for days (both of which have been part of funeral rites in some cultures).

madamez, I guess you're entitled to seethe inwardly as you sit in your car, the same as you would if you were stuck in normal traffic. But cutting up a hearse is probably pretty damn close to getting yer arse out, in terms of being offensive.

fwiw, I agree with you about the article. It seems from the comments on it, and the comments here, and indeed all my personal experiences, that people actually do still show considerable respect in these situations. It is a bit of a non-story on that level.

just because you wouldn't give a flying fuck doesn't mean that nobody else does. Thank god most people do have more respect and decency than you are showing.

sorry, that was directed at madamez

Well, chopster, all this guff about a lack of 'respect' actually seems to me to demonstrate the opposite: what I am seeing as an increasing trend is screaming bucketheads demanding that absolutely everyone indulge them RIGHT NOW in EVERYTHING because otherwise their FEELINGS are hurt - and everything becomes about how much of a big yowly knickerwetting fuss you can make (as opposed to recognising that other people have their own concerns and are not deliberately dissing you when they don't sink to the floor ullulating as you pass them by). Funeral rites are very variable: if certain customs become impractical because they cause too much hassle for everyone else (bearing in mind that, while an individual may only attend half a dozen funerals in a lifetime, a funeral venue will be hosting a dozen a day), then they should perhaps be reconsidered or phased out.

Realisticly 6 funerals in one life time is going to be very few for any person - I am only 40 and have attended nearer 20 funerals of freinds and family young and old.

it seems the drivers affected by having to wait er, all of 5 minutes or so, are the ones that want to be indulged right now.

which certain customs do you disapprove of the madamez

Depending on the street layout and the number of funeral attenders, a cortege can cause a fairly major traffic jam. one funeral car plus hearse is different from 20 plus cars all crawling through a narrow street in the middle of the day. Someone has already pointed out that in Germany funerals consist of turning up to the venue in your own time (ie getting there by various means) and the funeral ceremony begins and ends at the venue: people don;t feel that this is inadequate. Customs vary a lot, and some become obsolete because they are impractical.
There used to be a tradition, for instance, in some cultures of 'keening' ie howling and wailing as part of funeral rites: though this has now pretty much died out (according to a quick Google) this would be an example of a funeral custom that would be a bit much in, say, a terraced house with neighbours who didn't know the deceased and need their sleep.

well if that's the only reason, they should move or plan their journeys in more time.

SEA: but people living in an area are not generally notified that there's going to be a large funeral next Tuesday at 11am, so how are you supposed to know that the high st is going to be blocked for 20 minutes when you want to go and pick up your biopsy results?

it must depend upon where you live, it's pretty built up round here but still a rare occurence to see many slow processions. usually the funeral starts slow but usually picks up speed quite quickly.

i remember this being debated on radio 2, it's just the sheer abuse that's given to corteges. we need to slow down in this country, to stop and think, it's not too much to ask for is it.

I live half a mile from a very busy crematorium. I pass it at least twice every day and if I had to stop to let the funeral cortege pass my path everyday it wouldn't bother me one bit.

You seem to be doing a good impression of the 'screaming buckethead' yourself madamez.

i think something's wrong with society if you are sitting in car behind a funeral procession and all you can think of is get out of my way, i'm late. The fact is that for some people behind the wheel everyone else is in their way: only their business is important, everyone else's doesn't matter. How dare they organise a funeral just when I am rushing to work?? How dare someone have an accident in the M11 just when I need to be in that meeting by 10am???

Mademez's point is patently hypocritical. Why should anyone in the funeral procession care if you are late for a job interview? And how can you expect them to "respect" that particular circumstance if you do not "respect" the circumstances that bring them out into the streets.

It is true that over time some customs do die out, but that is not to say that they should.

However, I think that it is probably true that most people still do respect the funeral procession in which case the telegraph's article is a load of old hype, so Madamez may be right about that. However, if that is the case then the point that she made about the custom being outdated is also moot - it can't be outdated if most people still practice it.

So which is it then Madamez - is the custom outdated and the telegraph absolutely correct in its assessment that very few people respect the funeral procession?

Or is the custom still part of accepted cultural practice in the UK and the telegraph is just whingy and wrong.

Bluebutterfly: I think it's really a bit of both: people who are not seriously inconvenienced by a road-blocking cortege don't 'disresepct' it: however it perhaps should be the case that people don't go in for unreasonably long, major-hold-up causing corteges in very busy traffic areas either (and it should, of course, be the job of the funeral directors to advise people that certain things are not possible or practical).
Just as a matter of interest, which do you all think should take priority - cortege or ambulance? Or fire engine? Or police car on its way to pick up a shoplifter?

Fio, I laughed too - in fact my sister and I got hysterically giggly about the whole thing. And the fact that we were at a funeral and had to hide our giggles made it 1000 times worse.