Episode 2 A Very Welsh Undertaking

It's the last thing we want to think about - our funeral.

But we all have very different thoughts about the way we want to go.

"When the sun sets on the ocean blue,

"remember me as I will always remember you. God bless."

For some people, though, death is very much their way of life.

And they love their work.

'We care for the dead but we're there to help the families'

and I can't imagine a more rewarding job.

Welcome to a world that most of us will never see.

We're opening the doors on a very Welsh undertaking.

For this young lady, undertaking has been a family concern for generations.

'My name's Gemma O'Driscoll

'and I'm a funeral director in Hendy, Llanelli, South Wales.

'I'm one of only a handful of female funeral directors in Wales

'but in addition,'

I'm an inspector for SAIF,

which is a trade association for independent funeral directors.

'I'm also about to become president of SAIF.

'I also work as a tutor and assessor for the Independent Funeral Directors' College.

'I'm also a mum of six daughters, aged between five and 14,

'so there is a lot of fun, a lot of laughter in the house.'

I was an only child so you can read into that as you wish!

'I'm Mum today. But I'm always on call.

'I think many more families are choosing to use a female

'funeral director, so I do think attitudes are changing overall,

'but I see funeral directing as a caring profession

'and most caring professions are predominantly female dominated

'and traditionally it was always a woman who was

'involved in caring for the body and at some point, that faded away'

and the professional funeral director came to prominence

and that was usually a man and so

perhaps we're going back to that a little bit.

With the unpredictability of the work,

planning family days out is never easy.

'There's one thing we tend to do that is slightly different to when

'I was growing up and that's that pretty much everything is a surprise.'

Then they don't know about the three times we were going

out that got cancelled,

they only know about the day that we're in the car, and off we go.

In work today, though, yellow is the new black for Gemma.

'We have a really interesting funeral with a lovely family.

'It's completely non-traditional.'

So today, I must get my top hat on, the gloves and so,

it's not my usual attire.

Today I'm wearing yellow.

'The family want a bright and cheerful funeral,

'so I'm doing what I can to accommodate that as well.

'It wouldn't be suitable for me to be wearing black

'so if the family want me to wear a onesie, I'll wear a onesie.

'If the family want me head-to-toe in pink, I'll wear pink.

'Having a formal Victorian-style funeral for John,

'who loved comedy and laughter and inappropriate jokes -

'that wouldn't have been fitting for him at all

'so I think this was far more appropriate and respectful for John

'than a more traditional funeral would be for someone else.'

And he left very clear instructions not to wear black.

Now at this stage,

we'd normally have some calming music to listen to.

MUSIC: Yakety Sax by Boots Randolph

'To see a room full of people smiling and laughing during the funeral service

'is really something quite different

'and the crowd really appreciated everything that was done today.

'There's definitely a change towards a little bit more of this

'kind of thing and, um, yeah, I think

'we'll see much greater changes going forward in the future.'

Picked the girls up from school.

They've gone to after-school club today. Couldn't manage without it.

And I've got to pick them up, I've got to go home, we've got

to have dinner, and there's a PTA meeting tonight.

In Baglan near Port Talbot,

funeral director Gareth Jenkins is dealing with tragedy.

Last night, we heard that there was an incident on the local

station, near the local station here in Baglan.

It was a young man that died in a train accident.

It was on Facebook, it was on the news, it was on the radio.

It's very sad, but I have to go over and see them

and maybe tell them what they need to do next.

Meeting a grieving family for the first time is never easy

but how do you comfort a mum who has lost two of her boys?

My first son, he took his own life

and it's coming up to six years anniversary.

My second son, my oldest son,

he did exactly the same thing in exactly the same place.

We'll be able to fetch him from the hospital later on,

and I know you're anxious to come over and spend some time

with him, so you speak to whoever - your friends, your relatives,

whoever would like to come over, and then, I'll meet you later on.

But if they are too emotional, there's no pressure on them then.

They can just follow us in.

Damian is taken into the caring hands of Baglan Funeral Home.

We had permission from the coroner's office

and the hospital that we could fetch Damian back.

Normal circumstances, we would use a stretcher, um,

but given the severity of his injuries with the train impact,

you know, just to be practical, we decided to use the coffin

to take to the hospital, rather than a stretcher.

We just thought that it would be a bit safer and maybe a bit nicer.

For obvious reasons, they won't be able to view the deceased,

but they can sit with the coffin, so I think the family are quite

anxious to do that and spend some time just sitting there with him.

Yeah, I've got to put the coffin right and we do like to

dress inside, irrespective that if they are going to look in or not,

we'll just feel better if it's dressed in silk inside.

I can tell the family what we have done,

if they feel like they want to put some photographs in,

maybe we'll do that and I'll do that on their behalf.

I've just got to feel for them at this awful time

and hope that it will help them when they come here, that they

can spend that little time.

You deal with funerals, with deaths, every day,

and then every now and again, it just hits home

how vulnerable we are, really,

and how fragile we are and what do people think of when they're driven

to do something as drastic as this, um, what's going through their mind.

It's so sad, six years almost within a week or so, that his brother

took his own life in the very same way, in the very same area.

It's such a shock for the community

but we cannot begin to understand what it's like for their loved ones.

'If I could speak to them again, I'd tell them how much I loved them

'and I'd just want to put my arms around them and comfort them

'and tell them everything would be OK and everything will be better.

'But I can't. All I've got now are my memories and my photographs.'

-If that's OK, yes.

-Of course.

'When Dominic passed, I couldn't look at photographs of him as an adult.

'I could only look at childhood ones. But I can do it now.

'Suicides don't understand the implication of what

'they leave behind.'

-SHE SOBS

-Don't rush to go in. You stay here.

-You stay here for a bit.

'I would say with my own two boys, looking back now,

'they were adults and I don't think they wanted to involve

'people in their personal grief. And they just made their own decisions.

'It wasn't a cry for help because it was final.'

Plenty of handkerchiefs by there, right?

Come on, let's go and see her.

You...you give me a ring if you need me, OK? I'll be just outside.

Go on.

-Thanks.

-Go on.

SOBBING

God!

Oh, God! Oh, God!

'We couldn't have an open casket.

'So of course, you're talking to a coffin,

'cos I couldn't hold his hand, I couldn't kiss him.

'And it's just really, really difficult talking to a wooden box.

'So we took a picture of him, didn't we?

-'We took a picture up, and...

-Yeah.

'I think we were talking more to the picture, then, than to the box.'

It's in the stars, isn't it, babes?

'He's so young and it's a tragedy that's occurred in the family for a

'second time, so it's, you know, it's that extra, um,

'sadness about it.'

It's really such an awful occasion for them, so I want them

to have as long as they wish to grieve here and sit with him.

What would you like? Teas?

-Teas.

-And water?

-If it's not too much trouble.

-Not at all. How would you like it?

At one point, looked up to the sky and said, "God!"

And I'm not religious, so I just think, at one point,

-why did I say, "God"?

-Yeah.

I think cos it's I couldn't swear in a funeral home.

Dealing with grief is a daily part of the job of a funeral director.

And in Newport, a course has been set up by James Tovey to help

people cope with bereavement.

'So I've just come to the last week of our six-week

'course of a bereavement group, Steps.

'I first got interested in bereavement support

'after the sudden death of my mother'

and that's what made me realise that there was this gap for helping people.

James organised the course with the help of grief counsellor

Natalie Howard.

Steps is an initiative that we felt was really important

for people to have somewhere to go after the funeral, after everybody

has left them and the people are still stuck with their grief.

Sometimes it's "Why me? Why them?"

Sometimes it's a "why" that won't get answered.

At Steps, we don't feel that people will get over it,

but we do feel that we can help them get through their grief.

Any adult can come along and that can be for a grief that's

recent, or for a grief that's maybe many years ago.

When I first came here, I thought grief was just me, you know, just my grief.

And now I've understood by being here that everybody goes through it.

Each session, you seem to get better and improve, you know,

and I've found it... I've found it good.

And I'm really proud that we've put the course on for people,

cos they obviously...they genuinely find it really helpful,

and it's a nice continuation of our service and everything that we

do for people, but it also reminds me that it's really rewarding

to sort of help people out and people are so lovely and genuine

and it's great to hear their stories and great that we can help.

Without James sponsoring this free course,

people would still be searching for somewhere to go.

In west Wales, in the beautiful village of Laugharne,

the locals have trusted one family to take care of their deceased

relatives for generations.

'I'm Stuart Booth.

'I work at Peter Evans funeral directors. I'm the third generation.

'My grandfather started the business.

'I started helping him out about ten years ago

'and took over the last seven years.

'We're just in the process of building our new chapel of rest

'and new premises, and this is my mother, Alison.'

She's the real boss. She sorts us out in the background.

I've got a lot of titles, yes!

-Whenever a title is going, I get that title.

-Yeah.

It's a way of life to me, not a job. It never has been my job.

It's always been my way of life.

I was the undertaker's daughter, and now I'm the undertaker's mother.

Someone said to me the other day - I came out of the church,

and someone said, "Oh, you're like your grandfather."

I said, "That's the biggest compliment you can give me,

"because he was my hero, in a way."

Tradition is important but so is the future.

And Stuart has big plans to modernise the business,

including a brand-new chapel of rest.

This will be the office.

The idea with this little hole in the wall is, this is

the cross that my grandfather made for Dylan Thomas's grave in Laugharne.

He made a few of them and this is the last one he made.

They've just recently updated it now, so when they took this,

we asked them if we could have it and the idea is it's going to go in here.

It's quite dark in here but into the viewing room,

so they'd be able to come in here and just spend a bit of time with...

with the coffin.

Reverse the hearse up, inside, the hearse can come in here.

We can load the coffin then.

And even if it's raining and stuff outside, the coffin won't

get wet or anything and it can be loaded inside.

Three generations of Stuart's family are making sure that

everything will be ready for the chapel's official opening.

Once this is done, I don't want to see another paintbrush.

I think I'm more cut out for arranging funerals than I am for painting.

It's nice that he's busy. It keeps him out of mischief!

Stuart, now. Not Mason!

-Mum, painting!

-Yeah, painting.

It takes a certain type of person to be a funeral director.

And I could never do it. I'd be crying with the families.

But he's the right mix of caring and strong

and gets the families through it.

I think he's very good.

I wouldn't tell him that!

It's nice to hope that maybe Mason one day will be in here, running it as well.

In Baglan funeral home, it's time for a little bit of housework.

As we have a quieter day today with no deceased that we need to look after, we are taking the

opportunity to have a spring-clean and sort a few of these things out.

I don't know if you know that Craig is from Glasgow. So we've got...

How is that? Let me see if we can get that around you.

-Oh!

-Hang on. It's elasticated. We've got a chance.

My mum with her Scottish roots would be very proud of me wearing this.

Keeping everything looking spick-and-span

is a big part of the funeral business,

as Carmarthen-based carriage master Matthew Jones knows only too well.

He hires out hearses and limousines to funeral directors across Wales.

And you can have any colour you want - as long as it's black!

It's easier, probably, for a funeral director to hire off a carriage

master and just make a phone call, ask for a hearse

and limousine, at a certain time and a certain day

and we turn up ready to go, clean and shiny, hopefully.

There's a lot of money's worth in here.

These Volvos are priced at approximately £92-93,000 each.

All the drivers here know exactly what they are doing. They are all trained.

Some of them have been doing it much longer than me,

and at the end of the day, we are representing the funeral director

on the day of the funeral, so things have got to go right for us and

for him and most importantly, things have got to go right for the family.

But not all of these families live in Wales.

Another service Matthew offers is repatriation of the deceased

back to their homeland.

Today, he's arranging for Atanas Angelov to return home to

Bulgaria from Swansea, a complicated process.

We need to pick up a coffin, which will be a bit different -

zinc lined, to the standards for the flight.

You know, with the large influx of the Europeans that have moved

to Wales, this is becoming more of a regular occurrence.

At any one time, there could be hundreds, maybe thousands

of deceaseds being moved from one end of the country to the other,

from hospital to funeral home in the back of these type of vehicles.

There's quite a lot of paperwork involved.

There's a certificate free of infection,

the embalming certificate,

the out of England and Wales certificate,

the death certificate, the passport etc,

all that needs to go to London before the body goes.

We're going to Treorchy now, probably one of the biggest coffin

manufacturers in Wales, I would have thought.

In a quiet industrial estate on the outskirts of Treorchy is coffin

manufacturer Celtic Coffins, who make over 70 coffins a week

and are just finishing off a special order for Matthew.

-All right, boys? Good.

-All right.

-Coffin ready?

-Yeah.

-Oh, spot-on. Top man.

There we are.

So I just... Obviously after the body goes in.

-Silicone down.

-Silicone this down.

-That will go on there.

-Put the lid down...

-Yeah.

-..and it's ready to go. There we are. Great.

Right, got the coffin now. Um, quite...quite smelly in here,

with the lacquer of the coffin and the silicone.

We'll be quite high now, by the time we get home. So, we're off now

down to the hospital now, to collect the deceased from the hospital.

That's the next stage.

After collection from the hospital,

Matthew makes his way to Swansea to meet Atanas' brother Daniel,

to give him his deceased brother's belongings and to help him

complete the paperwork.

-How are you?

-I'm OK. Thank you.

OK? OK.

-I've got Atanas' belongings there, OK? From the hospital.

-Yeah.

I'll keep them there.

Once all that is sorted, then, I can let you know when the flight is.

OK.

Wrapped in the traditional white blanket

and resting in his zinc-lined coffin,

Atanas is ready for his long journey home.

So what I'll do now is just put a bit of sealant around the top,

stick the lid down and put the screws in then before we go,

so it's a sealed coffin then, to go on the airline.

'Just because the coffin

'and the deceased is in the back of the removal vehicle, as we call

'it, doesn't make any difference to when it's in a hearse, you know.

'We treat everything exactly the same.

'Obviously, the speed is a bit different, cos it's not

'a funeral cortege, but everything either to that is treated

'with the utmost of dignity then.'

In Laugharne, it's a big day for funeral director Stuart

and his mum Alison, as the doors of the new chapel of rest are

officially opened - an investment in the future of a family undertaking.

Today, we've finally got round to doing our open day.

It's been a lot of work.

Up until about half an hour literally before everyone arrived,

we were still rushing around putting tables and chairs and everything out.

It's a little bit out of the ordinary, so hopefully people will come along and support us,

just to see the premises and what we offer and the products and things that we offer.

I've seen huge changes over the years and now, to see

this is wonderful.

'I'm in charge of the memory balloons.'

So people come to us, write a little message for their loved ones,

we attach it to a balloon then, and then they can send it up.

My husband died and Stuart sorted the funeral out from here

so we're just sending a balloon up for my husband.

Let him go!

In Baglan, it's the day of the funeral of Damian James,

who took his own life.

Gareth is making a final call to the family on a traumatic day

for them and a difficult day for him.

Yeah, I'm just checking up now. We'll be done very shortly.

How many bouquets are there in the garden?

We always phone the family just before we're coming because I know

a lot of them, they're standing on their door,

they're looking at their watch.

It's just a reassurance that a phone call makes a lot of difference then.

It's been very upsetting for, obviously, for the family

and you can't help but get involved yourself.

Obviously, you don't

realise how much of their hurt you're taking on, because you

are taking the responsibility of cremating or burying their loved

ones and sometimes you don't really consciously think about it

and then when you reflect perhaps on the weekend,

when you've come down a bit,

how much you've taken on, you realise how stressful and tiring

it can be, but there again, very rewarding as well.

Letters are really popular, as you can imagine,

but you're limited to the size of the hearse.

But when they've got sometimes "great-grandfather",

or they might have a long name, what they don't realise is,

you can't see it,

cos sometimes we have to put a box on the seat to take it longer.

OK, gentlemen.

Gareth walks Damian out of the funeral home on his way to the family home.

A funeral is something you never look forward to.

But it's saying your final goodbyes.

SOBBING

SOBBING

And the name is on this side, OK?

Thank you so much. It's beautiful. Thank you. Oh...

'I'm looking forward to Monday coming and going because then,

'he'll be at rest, he'll be at peace

'and we can start the healing process all over again.

'I'm going to walk him up the street, because that's the last thing I'm going to do for him.

'I didn't bring them into this world for them to take themselves out. I didn't.'

We've gathered today to say farewell to Damian John James.

We've come to give thanks for his life.

We've come to celebrate his life.

MUSIC: A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay

'We're not actually singing hymns today.

'It's going to be a collection of all his favourite music

'and what the family and his partner have decided on

'that would be appropriate for the day.

'You know, obviously, I'll be standing there,

'calm and collected, hopefully, but when the service is on,

'I stand at the back and keep an eye on everybody.

'If I can get a message across to how we feel, as parents -

'please, if you can't speak to your parents

'or your sisters or your brothers, go and see a professional.

'Your loved ones, get them involved, say, "I'm feeling terrible,"

'you know, "I don't want to be here any more."

'Oh, just please, get help.

'The only one person who's been a rock is our funeral director.

'He's been absolutely amazing.'