Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Respect
Respect?
A funny thing happened on the way to the shops today......................................
I had already been to one funeral this morning, a quiet sedate respectful affair attended by a gathering of friends, family, colleagues, Councillors, and domino players. We bade our farewell to a man who served for 27 years as a Councillor in this town, he was an Alderman, he was our Mayor, we made him a Freeman of the Borough, he was a sage, a mentor, a drinking buddy and raconteur.
The church of St. Michael and All Angels in Westoe Road, South Shields was only just over half filled by our gathering, as we listened to an informed eulogy from Cllr. Jimmy Capstick, this was no brash overstated demonstration of affection, more a quiet homily to an old friend, one of those moments to renew old acquaintances, and so it was that we said good-bye to Harry Marshall.
Curly had a busy day to attend to - having taken a little time away from the Corner Shop, there was a hospital appointment with Missy Curly, another with Mrs. Curly, and a school meeting too for Junior Curly, additionally I needed to stock up on supplies of media and printing cartridges from my favoured supplier in Jarrow. Thus it was that at around 14.20 I was travelling along the John Reid Road towards the Lindisfarne roundabout, I had joined the dual carriageway at it's junction with King George Road a few minutes earlier. It seemed to me that the traffic was particularly bad for this time of day, something was amiss, the queue of traffic from some sort of "incident" was backed up all the way to the junction with Whiteleas Way and Boldon Lane. Then it dawned upon me, there was another funeral taking place at the crematorium today, that of man who having lived by the sword...........well, you know how the proverb goes.
Incredibly, the amount of people wishing to pay their last respects to this soul far exceeded the capacity of the crematorium and it's car park. One had the impression that a celebrity or member of the Royal House had met their demise. This was indeed an overstated affair, hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand could have been in attendance to witness the horsedrawn glass coached hearse making it's slow march towards the suburban cremators. The types who were here had a different sense of ocassion, they arrived coatless, tieless, in black garb and pink shoes, they arrived in droves, they choked the streets of local residents as they parked their four wheel drive gas guzzlers wherever they could (little thought for the residents here) and when the Brosely Estate had filled up, they started to fill parts of Simonside. The mourners finally decided that John Reid Road was the place to park the Chrysler Crossfires, Landrover Freelanders, and Toyota Landcruisers, on the grass verges lining both carriageways and on the grass verges of the central reservation. Hence the one mile queue of traffic in both directions.
What sort of message could be drawn from this overwhelming comparison between two funerals for two totally different types character? Showing "respect" for the passing of a life, and celebrating the achievements of a life are central to our funeral rites, for the Christian there is the giving of praise to God for creating a life and the prayers for the everlasting life in the body of the risen Christ. For the humanist, I admit, I am not too sure what the expectations are, but the comparisons today were stark.
I asked myself what sort of respect was being shown in both cases, one man passing away peacefully in his sleep after a long life of giving service to others, another who's life ended abruptly and violently, a victim of an assassin's bullets. One funeral was steeped in quiet dignity the other plastered with vain adulation, - I was rather saddened by both, but for very different reasons. Tony Blair and the Home Office have a "Respect Agenda", I wonder where the events of today fit into it?
May they both find peace.
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Curly Born in 1956
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