Public outpourings of grief

My last was in reply to roses and janthea.

Probably when you were a child, max, people couldn't afford to buy flowers or soft toys (there were fewer soft toys anyway) to leave out in the rain.

That's true bags, about financial constraints in the past. Mum grew up in Manchester, in an area with a large Irish community, in which showing respect for the dead, and their loved ones, was very important. She was somewhat overprotective of us in relation to funerals etc. because she said she'd spent too much of her childhood being taken to "view the body". I was the case that most people lay in state in their front room, to be viewed whilst a wake took place. People have always needed to find ways to express grief and I do believe we're a slightly less buttoned up society than we used to be for lots of reasons.

I was a child in the 60s thatbags - not the early 1900s!

My children were born in the 60s. I could not have afforded to buy teddy bears to put them out in the rain to rot.

Well, I'm only speaking from what I know, max. I don't think my parents could have afforded to do such things and we were not 'poor'. The average standard of living is higher now than it was in the 60s.

And soft toys are more readily available and a LOT cheaper in real terms. So are cut flowers.

I was also a young girl growing up in Manchester during the fifties and sixties. It was usual when someone died for word to spread about the time of the funeral and local people would close their curtains and go and stand outside with bowed heads and doffed caps as the cortège went by. When my nan died in 1972 the cortège halted for a few minutes outside her 'local' and there were about a hundred people lining the street there to pay their respects. I do remember that funerals were a regular occurrence on the street where I lived as a child. It was a very working class area and it seems with hindsight that most people died quite soon after retiring, or sadly, even before in some cases. I think most people nowadays are somewhat more removed from death; funerals don't tend to set off from the deceased's home anymore and people are living longer, families are smaller, so death is less 'visible' than it used to be.

Not quite sure where I was going with that last rambling post except to say that there has always been some sort of public observance of death and that the out working of that simply changes over time perhaps.

Grannya - my parents funerals did leave from what had been our family home, and where mum continued to live until a matter of 3 weeks before she died. It was comforting to us that the neighbours all stood outside waiting for the cars to arrive - we were inside making cups of tea, of course. Didn't think your post rambling, but then, given mine, how could I ?

It's a good post, ga, and it helps me to understand what is behind the flower and toy tributes of today. It still isn't something I'd do but I can understand other people wanting to. Death is important.

I remember those days, too, grannyactivist. Maybe there's something in the need to connect with death in a public way, given that the protocols of mourning have changed.

I think there's more to this "public outpouring of grief" that seems to have taken hold recently. Given that grief is a personal and private emotion experienced by those nearest and dearest, how can random members of the public claim to be grieving? I can understand sadness, and the need to empathise in some way. But there is something rather mawkish in the need to be seen to be emoting in full public view. It makes death into a drama in which people feel they have to play a part. And to be seen doing it.

It reminds me a bit of those charity fundraisers who run/walk marathons dressed as Minnie Mouse or bedecked in ribbons when a simple donation would have served just as well.

It's all about them, isn't it?

Living rather off the beaten track and not having a telly, I suppose I'm spared the melodramas. Perhaps that's why I don't mind the idea of flower and teddy tributes.

Like many of us, I find the idea of teddies being left to rot in the rain rather than given to, for example, the nursery a dead child has attended, very wasteful, and I hate to see the flowers covered in uncompostable plastic.

maxgran, you reminded me of my father's funeral. When we were in the car following the hearse through the streets of the small town where he lived, a gentleman took off his hat as the hearse passed, and I found that very moving, which surprised me. I felt very touched at the politeness from someone who was a stranger to me.

After funerals at our church the hearse has to cross a main road just after it leaves the church to get to the cemetery, and either the undertaker or sometimes a police officer stops the traffic. Some of those who have been at the service follow the hearse on foot across the road and for a little way further. That seems to me to be very dignified and a fitting marker to say "Here was someone who was important to us".

Yes. A few bunches of flowers at the scene of a local accident is one thing, and understandable - we're talking huge piles of bouquets and soft toys in more high-profile cases, with mothers urging their toddlers to add to the mountain and sometimes obviously hoping to be interviewed by the ever-present reporters.

We call them cellotaphs. After the Diana flowers I felt there should have been a flying squad of emergency florists who could Do something rather like the floral carpets seen in Brussels or as in well dressing. I so dislike seeing those poor soft toys sitting out in all weathers.

Just don't get it- at all. It always seems obscene to me, and such a huge waste in so many ways- giving some money to a related charity seems a million times more appropriate.

I hate the forgotten bunches of old, old flowers tied to a lamppost or a railing where someone has been killed in a road accident. I saw a proper little shrine somewhere recently - can't remember where - and that looked OK.

I think I'm getting to be an old codger because when I see on the news people taking flowers to a place where some horrible tragedy has occurred I just think "what a waste of money" give it to charity. I don't mind a ribbon or flag but not flowers. I tell my lot if you can't be bothered to give me flowers while I'm alive don't bother when I'm dead. That'll save em a couple of of bob.

I can understand that someone might think that it was appropriate to leave a teddy in memory of a dead child, though I still think it's daft, but for an adult? I'm pretty sure that started with the death of Princess Diana. Kensington Palace seemed to be under an ursine siege.

I think Blair has a lot to answer for .
When he stood up that Sunday morning and called her the "peoples princess" it just seemed to open up a floodgate !

Master of the soundbite.

Can never understand why people stand clapping when a hearse goes by, surely it is more respectful to stand quietly with bowed head? I know that, in the case of the Armed Forces, perhaps it is applause to pay homage to the sacrifice they have made. However, it is noticeable that old soldiers of the Royal British Legion stand with bowed heads on such occasions.

I think the respect shown to the repatriated soldiers by the people of Wootton Basset was profound and deeply moving. It certainly didn't involve applause.

It did Absent on several occasions the crowd clapped the cortège as it passed and we all remember the roses that were thrown or placed on the cars.