Class

by Jilly Cooper

  When a peer, a peeress in her own right or a baronet dies it is customary for letters written to members of his or her family to be addressed to them by the titles by which they were previously known until after the funeral. Consequently if a friend wrote to Harry saying how sorry he was about the death of Lord Egliston, he would address the letter to the Hon. Harry Stow-Crat, and if The Times reported the funeral they would describe him in the same way. At the memorial service a fortnight later he would be called Lord Egliston.

  Old Lord Egliston’s funeral would be simple. Harry would wear a dark suit and a black tie, Caroline would dress soberly but not in black. Relations and friends might have to walk across the fields while the coffin was carried to the family church, which means Gucci shoes sinking into the cowpats. Although it is more upper class to be buried than cremated it is frightfully smart to have to be cremated because your family tomb is so full of your ancestors going back to the year dot that there is no room for you. Lord Egliston might just squeeze into the family grave. The headstone, when it was up, would bear a simple inscription: ‘Henry George De Vere Stow-Crat, 5th Baron Egliston, born 12 April 1905, Died 23 April 1979’. People would send flowers picked from their own gardens with plain cards saying ‘With Love’ or ‘In Loving Memory’ in their own hand-writing. Being old-fashioned like the working classes, they might also send wreaths. Afterwards, everyone would go back to lunch or tea, where, depending on the stuffiness of the family or on the intensity of the grief, a certain amount of drink would be consumed.

  When very important men die, what diplomats describe as a ‘working funeral’ takes place, which means that heads of state from all over the world meet on neutral ground and, while pretending to admire the wreaths, the Chinese and American foreign secretaries can discuss matters of moment out of the corners of their mouths without appearing to fraternize.

  The upper-middles would probably drink themselves silly at the funeral, although a few years ago this would have been frowned on. When my husband, in the early ‘sixties, announced that he intended to leave £200 in his will for a booze-up for his friends, his lawyer talked him out of it, saying it was in bad taste and would upset people. The same year his grandmother died, and after the funeral, recovering from the innate vulgarity of the cremation service when the gramophone record stuck on ‘Abi-abi-abi-abi-de with me’, the whole family trooped home and discovered some crates of Australian burgundy under the stairs. A rip-roaring party ensued, whereupon a lower-middle busybody who lived next door came bustling over to see if anything was wrong. My father-in-law, seeing her coming up the path, uttered the immortal line:

  ‘Who is this intruding on our grief?’

  Today, however, anything goes. Samantha Upward would probably get drunk out of guilt when her mother died. She had taken her mother in when she was widowed and bedridden, but it hadn’t been a success. Having lived apart for so long, it was a terrible shock when they had to live together. The upper-middles have little respect for the wisdom of age, and Samantha got very irritated when her mother gave her advice about the children or running the house, and Samantha’s mother missed her friends in Bournemouth terribly. Our local undertaker also said that the better educated people are, the more matter-of-fact they are about death. They treat the undertaker like a professional and let him get on with it, not quibbling about the price. Usually only the family send flowers; everyone else is asked to send the money to charity instead. A month later everyone gets smashed out of their minds once again at the memorial service.

  When Mr Nouveau-Richards dies of a heart attack, Mrs Nouveau-Richards is worried about how she should arrange things. They don’t report smart funerals in The Tatler for her to copy. She turns up at the church in deepest black with a huge picture hat and lots of make-up. All Jison’s telly-stocracy friends turn up and keep a weather eye out for photographers and television cameras. The men wear light-coloured suits and cry a lot. The girls also wear deepest black and picture hats, but cry less in case their mascara runs. All Mr Nouveau-Richard’s business colleagues send wreaths with black-edged funeral cards with ‘Deepest Sympathy’ printed on them. Mrs Nouveau-Richards insists on the undertakers wearing the full regalia of top hats, pinstripe trousers, and umbrellas.

  After he was buried in the cemetery (Caroline Stow-Crat calls it a ‘graveyard’) Mrs N-R would have a splendid tomb built in strawberry roan marble, and engraved with ornate sentiments about Mr N-R ‘crossing the bar to his eternal rest’, and being ‘the beloved father of Jason and Tracey-Diane’.

  The Teale’s would be very stingy and question the price of everything. Jen thinks death is ‘not very naice’, and would expect the undertaker to do everything. She wouldn’t want the hearse outside the house. She and Bryan would drive the Volkswagen to the funeral. After all there’s nothing to get upset about: Bryan’s mother was ‘very elderly’ and had been a ‘senior citizen’ for a long time. There would be no ‘sobbing’ at the funeral; that’s what the Definitely-Disgustings do. Bryan’s mother would probably be cremated as it’s cheaper, although if she did have a grave, Jen wouldn’t want the bother of tending it, so, instead of grass, the flat bit would be sprinkled with emerald green chips which serve the same function as plastic grass. Floral tributes would be particularly tasteful, and Bryan would probably wear a black armband on his sleeve for a few weeks afterwards.

  The Definitely-Disgustings really push the boat out. ‘I’m going to Florrie’s funeral tomorrow,’ I heard one working-class Yorkshire woman saying. ‘It should be a good do,’ a sentiment that would never be expressed by the middle classes.

  Mr Definitely-Disgusting even insured for the purpose of being buried right, but, alas, with the cost of living the policy seldom comes anywhere near covering the cost of the funeral, which means Mrs D-D is likely to be left penniless and in debt. The problem, said our local undertaker, is to stop people overspending in a fit of emotionalism. Often they get quite annoyed.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me my missus doesn’t deserve the best?’ said one man.

  One train driver’s widow, who could ill afford it, forked out for six cars and a very expensive panelled coffin. Afterwards she came and thanked the undertaker, adding that it was worth it, ‘Even if I have to go out scrubbing for the rest of my life to pay for it.’

  In the old days the streets used to be sanded to deaden the sound of the horses’ hooves. And even today whole streets in the North and in Wales will show solidarity by drawing every curtain from the moment the hearse leaves the house until the funeral party returns.

  The working classes still send funeral cards with poems inside and pictures of lilies and purple prayer-books on the front, which are displayed on the window sill outside drawn curtains. Often the men go out specially to buy a black suit, and often as many as six cars filled with tearful relations follow the hearse. Frightful rows ensue, too, because someone who thinks he’s important enough to travel in the second car only gets a seat in the third car. Invariably, according again to our local undertaker, its the 42nd cousin once removed who screams and cries the loudest because he’s been on the booze since dawn.

  At the funeral of a cockney gypsy who had married again after his first wife died, the first wife’s family were lined up on one side of the grave, the second wife and her family on the other, each glaring across at the other. As the coffin was lowered the first wife’s son shook his fist at the second wife, hissing, ‘He’s gone to lie with a good woman now’. Whereupon the son of the second wife nipped round the back, pushed the first wife’s son into the grave and jumped on top of him. A glorious free-for-all resulted, which was only stopped by the arrival of the police.

  With the floral tributes the working classes really come into their own. Once again, because of their inability to express themselves verbally, they spell it out with flowers. On the hearse are likely to be cushions and pillows with ‘Mum’ written across, empty chairs saying ‘We’ll Never Forget You, Dad’, teddy bears or favourite dogs for the death o
f a child, bleeding hearts, harps with a broken string, all made entirely of flowers. Around the Elephant and Castle people often pay tribute to a man’s profession. One East-Ender had a whole market stall full of fruit and vegetables, with all the price tickets, made entirely of different-coloured carnations, which took six men to lift onto the hearse. A landlord is often given a glass of foaming beer made entirely of white and brown chrysanthemums, while a bookie might have a floral winning post. One East-End boxer had his last fight almost to scale, with a ring, a referee and two boxers—all made of daisies. A florist told me the working classes would consider it insulting to give someone a small posy of spring flowers. If an old age pensioner comes into the shop and you steer her towards something that looks within her price range, she still insists on buying long-stemmed chrysanthemums at £1 a flower.

  The party afterwards will be a terrific booze-up with crates and crates of beer and masses of stodgy food. One scrap-metal merchant even put up a marquee in his garden. Everyone gets plastered and then does song and dance acts. David Storey told me how he once went to a friend’s funeral in Yorkshire. Not knowing the dead man’s family, it was only after freezing beside the grave for twenty minutes that he discovered, on asking one of the mourners, that he was at the wrong funeral.

  ‘Never mind, lad,’ comforted the mourner, ‘they’ll all be meeting up at the Black Bull same as us afterwards’.

  After the funeral Sharon and Dive would club together to buy Mr D-D a headstone, perhaps inscribed with the words ‘Have a Good Sleep, Dad’. They would also put another entry in the local paper thanking everyone for their condolences and floral tributes. A year later, it would be considered very remiss if an In Memoriam notice didn’t appear in the same paper:

  God took Dad home.

  It was his will.

  But why that way

  We wonder still.

  Always in our thoughts, fondest love,

  Doris, Dive, Sharon, Auntie Edna and little Terry.

  Quite often there will be additional notices from several other members of the family. Because the working classes tend not to take part in local affairs, birth, marriage and death, or when they get caught nicking a telly, are the only times they get their names in the paper. Howard Weybridge might put an In Memoriam to Eileen in the Daily Telegraph, or even one to his elder brother who was killed at Anzio.

  Finally our heroes reach the Other Side. How will they fare in the after-life? Harry Stow-Crat is thoroughly enjoying himself. He is just expressing delight at seeing Snipe and Nanny again when suddenly a beautiful angel flaps past and Harry can’t decide whether to take a pot at her or ask her out to lunch. Jen Teale is speechless with admiration at the whiteness of the angels’ robes and wonders whether they use a bio-wash. Mr Nouveau-Richards, having examined the burglar alarm on the Pearly Gates, is boasting to God how much better his own gates on earth were wired up against intruders, and how none of the pearls are as big as the ones he gave Mrs N-R for their silver wedding. Jison is just about to ask Jesus for an in-depth interview. Howard Weybridge is having a round of golf with the Holy Ghost, and Mr Definitely-Disgusting is having a lovely time playing golden oldies on the harp and filling in his football coupon for the match against Limbo in the afternoon.

  Only Samantha Upward looked perturbed. Who would have thought, she keeps murmuring to herself disconsolately, that God would say, ‘Pleased to meet you’, when we arrived?