9 minute read
Researching lone deaths and public health funerals
A study by Dr Glenys Caswell and Dr Nicola Turner of the University of Nottingham
Working as you do in the cemeteries and crematoria sector you will be much more familiar with public health funerals than most members of the public. You will understand the legal background, and you will know why and how public health funerals come about. You will also know what they are like in practice and how difficult they can be for all involved.
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Often such funerals can seem sad. No one appears to mourn the person who died, and little seems to be known about their life.
Until recently our personal knowledge of public health funerals was limited to reading about them and talking to people involved. Just before the pandemic lockdown, however, we were both privileged to attend two different funerals. Each of us attended a cremation and a burial. The services were led by a civil celebrant. If the lockdown had not begun, we would have wished to attend more.
The reason we attended these two funerals was as part of a research project we were carrying out.
The research aimed to explore what we call lone deaths. We define a lone death as one where the person concerned lives alone, dies alone at home and then their body is not found for an extended period of time. We are researchers at the University of Nottingham and we both have an interest in exploring the ways in which, as a society, we manage death and dying.
In this piece of research we wanted to understand how lone deaths could come about. How was it that people could be so cut off from others that no one noticed when they died? Was it that their families and communities had abandoned them?
We also wanted to learn about the processes that take place after someone dies a lone death. What are the legal requirements, we wondered? Who makes decisions about whether it should be a burial or cremation? Who, if anyone, looks for family members? What do people working in the sector think and feel about this part of their role?
Our research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and we began work in August 2018. The first thing we did was to carry out a media review, exploring news media responses to lone deaths. Such reports are influential, in that this is how most people learn about lone deaths.
Next, over the following 18 months or so, we established ten case studies. A case study is a way of gathering information about one case from a number of different sources. For us, each case study was focused on the lone death of one individual.
To set up the case studies we drew on a variety of sources. For example, we reviewed coroner files on the case. Coroner files included documents such as statements from police officers, from members of the public who were witnesses, and from family members.
They also included the post-mortem report, and Dr. Glenys Caswell and Dr. Nicola Turner details about the inquest (if there was one) and the coroner’s conclusion about the case.
We also reviewed the media coverage of the case. Media coverage varied, but there was always at least one item in the local paper. All of it, of course, is readily available online.
Whenever possible we also interviewed someone who had known the person who died. This was the most difficult aspect of the research. In most cases there was no family to approach and ask for an interview. In the end we completed four such interviews, each about a different case study. The third way in which we explored the topic of lone deaths was to interview professionals. We talked to people working in local authorities, who had responsibility for managing public health funerals. We talked to funeral directors and funeral celebrants. Between us we attended four public health funeral, two cremations and two burials, to observe such funerals in practice.
What did we find?
For us as researchers attending public health funerals, at first sight they appeared the same as any other funeral we had attended. The coffin arriving in a smart hearse – it is not too surprising nowadays for there to be no display of flowers with the coffin, as families opt for donations to charity instead. The funeral director, their staff, the celebrant and the cemetery/ crematorium workers all smartly dressed. The funeral director paging the hearse for the final yards to the venue and then leading the coffin inside or to the graveside.
It was as we entered the cemetery chapel or arrived at the open grave and took our places that the differences were brought home to us. There was no one to mourn, apart from workers. The funeral celebrant talked about the ‘celebration of a meaningful life’ as the reason we had come together but knew so little about the person who had died. A eulogy was given, comprised of just one or two scant pieces of information. Speaking to the celebrant after the funeral, we heard how hard it was for them to write and deliver a meaningful service in these circumstances.
Out of our ten case studies, seven are men, three are women. We think that men do undergo lone deaths more often than women, but we took on cases as they came our way. Two of our cases are Welsh and eight are English.
They people who died were aged between 48 and 72. The shortest period between death and the discovery of the body was two days. The longest period was about six years.
The level of decomposition meant that the pathologist was unable to assign a cause to the death in seven cases. In two cases identification of the body was difficult. This was because their face could not be recognised, and DNA comparison could not be carried out because there was no one to take a comparison sample from. It was also the case that they could not be identified through their teeth because they had not attended a dentist.
Two of the people who formed our case studies, one man and one woman, had cut themselves off entirely from the social world. They had both worked, but on stopping work they ceased contact with their colleagues, neighbours and anyone else they had previously known. They did not appear to have any relatives. Their bodies were not found for several years.
In most cases, however, we learned that the person who died had been a private person who liked their own company. They had very few, if any, friends. If they had family, it was likely to be very small and quite possible that their closest relatives had already died. In some cases, their family had dispersed across the UK or even the world. When this happens, it is very easy to lose contact.
All of the people who formed our case studies had worked in the past, but none did so at the time of their death. Amongst their number were a Falklands veteran, a postman, a nurse, a shop manager, a sailor, a coffin bearer, a traffic warden, an engineer.
We were struck by how ordinary they seemed as a group. They died in an unusual way, perhaps, but had worked in the kinds of jobs that any of us might do. In this they contributed to society in the way that most of us do. They did work that was useful to the community and they paid their taxes.
To illustrate what we mean we would like to tell you about the case of Mrs Helen Walsh. Mrs Walsh was 70 years old when she died. She lived in the house she had shared with her husband, who had died about 10 years before. This was her first marriage, but Mr Walsh had been married before. They did not have children together, but he had a daughter from his previous relationship. After his death Mrs Walsh lost touch with her stepdaughter. Mrs Walsh did not have any family, so far as the initial investigation into her death could discover.
Helen Walsh’s body was discovered when traders who worked near her home realised that they had not seen her for some time. The manager of the grocery store spoke to the owner of the garage across the road from Mrs Walsh’s home, asking if he had seen her recently. He had not. He went over the road and rang Mrs Walsh’s bell. She did not answer, so he looked through the letter box. He could see her lying on the floor, but she did not respond when he called out to her.
He called the police, who came and broke into Mrs Walsh’s home. They found her lying dead on the floor. They described the house as messy and unkempt. The garage owner said that he saw Mrs Walsh about once a week when she went out to go shopping. He described her as a private person who did not stop to chat. She never had callers at her home.
A post-mortem was carried out at the coroner’s request, and the pathologist determined that she had died of natural causes. The inquest into Mrs Walsh’s death commented that she had not seen her general practitioner for quite some time. It is not known, however, whether this was because she enjoyed good health, or had a disinclination to visit the doctor.
Helen Walsh, it seems, lived a quiet, private life. So far as we can tell, she appears to have been contented with her own company. She died alone, in a manner that may seem sad to many of us but which was, in fact, in keeping with the way she lived.
We are used, in the 21st century, to funerals which celebrate the life of the person who died. The coronavirus pandemic altered the way in which this could be carried out, but despite this we retain the desire to celebrate the life as well as mourn the death.
From our research we would suggest that there are some people for whom this is not such an appropriate form of funeral. We believe that sometimes, for people such as Helen Walsh who was a private person, a celebration of their life is not appropriate. Better, perhaps, for the funeral to acknowledge them as a member of the human community. In many, perhaps most, cases it is the right thing to do to celebrate the life, with a eulogy, and a personalised choice of music, readings and so on. Sometimes, however, it is more suitable perhaps to say we have come here today to acknowledge the death of one of our community, we know little about them, they were a private person who was contented in their own company. What we do know is that the fact of their living contributed to our society and for that we thank them and say goodbye.
It is our view that we should continue with the current practice whereby public health funerals are managed in the same way as any other. In addition, we could refocus on the acknowledgement of community membership instead of the funeral as a celebration of life. We would also suggest rebranding the public health funeral as a community funeral; carried out on behalf of the community to acknowledge and say goodbye to a community member.
If anyone has any questions or would like more information they can email me on: glenys.caswell@nottingham.ac.uk
