I have to admit, I absolutely hate funerals, but I love the wake after

 I have spent the whole day successfully avoiding any coverage at all of the funeral of Her Majesty the Queen. I have always absolutely loathed funerals, be it friends, families or members of the Royal Family. The more formal the funeral, the more pomp and ceremony, the less I like it. When I was a child, I was an alter server at the local Roman Catholic Church. Their was fierce competition to serve at weddings, as you always got a cash bung and they were cheerful events. As part of the local community, we knew most of the people anyway. They were either family or friends. We'd often be invited into the social centre for a glass of pop afterwards, as a thank you, even if we weren't invited. 

Funerals were the opposite end of the scale. The services were long, everyone was miserable, you didn't get a bung and no one invited you in for some pop. If it was a relative or someone you liked, it was grim business. Generally with the Mill Hill alter servers, some form of scalliwaggery went on. There wasn't much on telly back in the 1960's and 1970's, it was a bit of a Boys club, where we met up, did the job at hand, then talked about football, went to the park to kick a ball around or to the shops to spend our pocket money. Girls were not allowed to join, they had to make do with the choir. Most of us were in the servers from the age of about 6-7 until we were 13 or 14. The setup at the Sacred Heart in Mill Hill was a bit like Father Ted in London. The church was and is run by the Vincentian Order. There was a Father Ted style Parish Priest. He was the Boss man and made all of the decisions. In my time, we had Fr Dowley, a wonderful chap. He set up a great social scene, with a thriving parish life and a good social club. He was followed by Fr Corkery. He was stern man, who disliked the Irish drinking culture and shut  down the social club. He was followed by Fr Clear, a nice chap, but by 1976, when he arrived I'd lost interest in it all. 

The Fr Jack character, the old semi retired priest was Fr Andy Kavanagh. He was a Cork man and his accent was so thick as to be almost indecipherable. He'd been a missionary in China and had been tortured by the Chinese Communists. He'd often turn up at our house and have a whisky with my Dad. I quite liked him, purely on the basis that he gave you very light penances when you made a confession (which for a while was almost mandatory). I suspect he realised that most kids making confession were not really that sinful. Occasionally I'd confess a terrible sin, such as nicking my brothers change to buy sweets and he'd chuckle. The standard penance was three Hail Mary's.  If you were really bad, you got an Our Father. One of my mates confessed that he'd got distracted serving on the alter by a rather pretty girl in the congregation and forgotten to bring over the alter wine. He had to say a decade of the Rosary. Fr Kavanagh (quite unusualy for him) also offered him some sage advice. He said "Don't let girls distract you, it will get you into all kinds of trouble!". He didn't listen and got into all kinds of trouble. 

Then there was the young Fr Dougall character. Their job was to run the alter servers. There were a few. The greatest of these was the rather wonderful Fr Jimmy Sheil. A rugby and football loving priest, the best kind. He took us on outings to Brighton and Margate and made it all fun. He knew we hated funerals, so he had a points system. You got points for doing the less popular masses & funerals and that got you first dibs of the weddings. His successor abolished this as "unholy" and they always struggled to get servers after that. 

Big funerals had a requiem mass, usually in Latin, that went on for ages. The one redeeming feature of a funeral was that you could usually get let off school at Finchley Catholic, if you were serving. Anything was better than school to me, so I did quite a few funerals, but in truth, it was always a real chore. The only good thing was you got the whole morning off school. Having a lie in and lunch at home was the main attraction. Quite often, it would be your mates Grannies etc who were being buried. They'd see you on the alter and struggle to hold back the tears, not wanting to be laughed at for being softies. I sometimes thought it would be kinder if we weren't there at all. I don't know if that's where I got my dislike from, but I suspect it was. 

I was quite lucky in some regards. All of my grandparents passed before I was born, so I was spared their funerals. In fact the only family funeral I can really recall attending was my Aunty Kathleen, my Godmother and my mum's brother's wife. She was a lovely lady and it was a rather harrowing day. The wake was the first such do that I recall. I was probably 11 or 12 and my Uncle George gave me a couple of Scotches. It was fascinating watching the gathered mourners descend from stiff upper lipped reverence into drunken reminsiscence. I realised that I loved wake's but hated funerals. I was also extremely grateful that I belonged to a religion, family and culture with a drinking culture. It meant that a proper send off was given. I've been to dry funerals and to me, it feels very uncomfortable.

As we mourn the Queen, I started thinking about the wake that the Royals will have. Perhaps for me the most interesting  aspect of a wake is that people who hate each others guts are forced to spend time together, drinking alcohol. You tend to find 'different camps' in different corners of the room. Those with no axe to grind circulate. I get the feeling that there are a few fairly distinct camps in the Royal family. I wonder what anecdotes will be swapped? I wondered how Wills and Harry get on with their cousins? One very strange thing. I have a pretty good memory, but I have almost no recollection of my Mothers funeral and none of her wake. As to my Father, I recall a few sketchy memories, mostly of various relatives annoying me.  It was held in the social centre of the Catholic Church in Mill Hill. I carried the coffin in, being the tallest son, I was at the front of the line with my Brother in law Peter. My Dad was 17 stone and it was a bloody heavy weight. My Dad was well known in the Church and there were a lot of priests on the alter. When his coffin was laid in the ground, various people threw items in on top of it. These were things like a deck of cards and a sprig of eucalyptus (he was an Aussie). My Dad, being an Aussie, was always pretty irreverent at such events. At his own wake, I can't recall anyone taking on his role of dropping the bombshell witty comment that got us all cracking a smile. We weren't ready for him to go, which put a bit of a dampner on it. The best wake I can recall was my Uncle George's. He died of Prostate Cancer and had spent the previous six months planning every detail. It was at the Load of Hay, long since demolished, in Hendon. At the end of the night, myself and my brother Laurie. George had left strict instructions that we'd be the last ones and we were to have a glass of the finest scotch on him. My sister Caroline who was with us was quite put out. 

Sometimes at the wake, people end up putting long standing disputes to bed, sometimes quite the opposite. I hope the Royals can sort their differences out