Friday, July 20, 2007

Death: in Britain, its a funny business indeed

When news hit the headlines (albeit the internet headlines) that Soft Cell frontman Marc Almond was, by all accounts, “fighting for his life” after a motorcycle accident, I found myself severely shaken: Marc Almond, like Paula Yates, was one of the generation I'd grown up with, a character who had provided some sort of fleeting soundtrack to my life – Marc with his music, Paula with her style. I never personally met either of them, but my reaction to the bad news of both celebrities was something akin to personal grief. I wasn’t part of any of the public displays of sympathy that followed Princess Diana’s death, but I almost had a breakdown on the day that Freddie Mercury died, so who was I to be cynical about the piles of flowers and teddy bears in Kensington Gardens? When Boris Johnson took pop at the ‘sickly, sinister sentimentality’ of the reaction to Ken Bigley’s death up in Liverpool, I agreed with what he said about scousers (I am one, so I'm allowed to) but not what he said about communal mourning or anger. When we mourn a celebrity, privately or publicly, we’re finding an opportunity to vent our own grief.

When a friend or relative dies, we’re duty bound to ‘behave correctly’. The traditional British funeral is generally made up of a crowd who value stoicism over the expression of emotion. A stiff upper lip is called ‘dignified’, uncontrollable sobbing is called ‘vulgar’, a personal speech accused of being ‘phoney’ – we simply don’t know how to deal with anything close
to heart-on-the-sleeve emotion. And yet, death works to the most genuine Equal Opportunities policy of all. Regardless of sexuality, culture, faith or political beliefs, we’re all going to die one day. Given that certainty, you’d think we’d have found a way, by now, to behave in a genuinely ‘proper’ fashion when a loved one pops off.

Remember the Aids Iceberg of the early 80’s? I, and many of my generation, lost several friends to it. I never thought the day would come when I realised the benefits that such sorry circumstances afforded me; those I lost taught me a lot about how life – and death – should be lived. I’ve attended funerals where balloons were tied to the hearse, where everybody was
ordered to wear white gloves, where ‘Love Supreme’ (a tribute band) sang ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ in place of a sermon. One particularly memorable funeral had ‘Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead’ playing over loudspeakers as the coffin slid into the furnace – we laughed, we cried, and we’ll never, ever forget the day we said goodbye to Brian King (RIP). Call these funerals irreverent, call them vulgar, call them what you will, but I call them life-affirming, despite the circumstances. In Mexico, you can attend a candlelit feast around the grave for 24 hours after the coffin has been sunk. In the Middle East, they wail loudly in the streets. Irish Catholics have the Wake. But Middle-Englanders button-up and bear down, getting congratulated for stoicism or sneered at if we cry. We freely discuss and judge other people’s sex lives, politics and clothes sense, but god forbid that we ever mention the ‘D’ word outside of a church or a hospital word. To do so is gloomy, improper, crude or
tacky; embarrassing, depressing or downright common. But there’s safety in numbers: when a celebrity dies, it’s an opportunity to vent feelings that have been festering away since we last grieved a dearly departed ‘ordinary person’ of our own. If it weren’t for Diana, Freddie, Ken, Paula or their ilk, some of us would never get the opportunity to freely mourn. Never mind what the Spectator tells us; emotion – like ridicule – is nothing to be scared of.

At the time of writing, Marc Almond is, fortunately, recovering. If the situation takes a turn for the worst, check the listings for the 24-hour ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ vigil in Bath. I’ll be the one on the steps of the Guildhall wailing my way though ‘Tainted Love’ – because let’s face it, I won’t be allowed to display such behaviour next time somebody I really know dies.

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