Covid lives weren't celebrated - funeral director

A funeral director has expressed his sadness that people who died during the Covid pandemic were never "celebrated" by their families.

Many people were unable to hold services to say goodbye to their loved ones due to public health restrictions on gatherings that were in place at the time.

Michael Lawrence, the owner of Family Funeral Service in Kent, said: "After that period, people were not inclined to revisit that death, and try to gather everyone back together again."

People who died "just disappeared quietly into the darkness and it is a great shame", he added.

According to the funeral director, whose business operates in Maidstone and the Medway towns, some people were able to make alternative plans which were allowed under the restrictions.

Friends of one deceased person gathered in small groups, sharing stories from that person's life, he said.

Mr Lawrence said: "Under the circumstances it was the very best we could do.

"They appreciated it and understood, and they were happy to have at least that."

Alternative funeral arrangements have now "caught the imagination of people" and are becoming more popular, he said.

The high death rate made the pandemic a "scary time", Mr Lawrence said, recalling how his business began to experience capacity problems at its body storage facilities.

After approaching local clergy, Family Funeral Service stored bodies in two disused churches in the area, as the company "just couldn't cope".

"At one time we had 120 coffins standing on the backs of the pews," Mr Lawrence said.

"It was just happening so quickly. You put the phone down and it rang again."

"I was scared because, at that time, there wasn't an end in sight," he said.

The funeral director was also fearful after contracting the disease himself, as he saw "what could happen" first hand.

The Rabbi of Guildford, Alex Goldberg, agreed that the Covid pandemic was a "hard time", particularly for families who had lost loved ones.

The Jewish community in Surrey reached the consensus that "preserving life came first", and that honouring the dead should take place "as much as possible" under restrictions, he said.

He added that religious practices for handling bodies were adapted to protect people from infection, but said "bodies were released very quickly and burials were done very quickly".

Father Felix Smith, a vicar for the South Lancing and Sompting, and Lancing with Coombes parishes, said he found himself doing "lots and lots of funerals" where restrictions allowed.

Often funerals took place entirely at the graveside to allow more people to attend under social distancing rules, but he said this did not feel like a "proper" funeral for some, as no wake took place.

The Church of England vicar described feeling "particularly weighed down" by funerals in the pandemic.

This "little bit of a strange feeling" was brought on by having "almost no break between these funerals" and the services becoming "almost the only ministry that we were doing", he said.

Father Smith added that organising funerals over the phone was "very different" to discussing arrangements while sitting with families in their homes and looking at pictures of their departed loved ones.

"It makes a big difference because you can't make eye contact," he said.

"When someone is getting upset on the end of the phone it's a very different thing."

The vicar also said funerals during that period lacked physical touch, and therefore the expression of emotion of funerals in more normal times.

Wearing masks meant emotion was sometimes "difficult to convey", Mr Smith said.

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