If You Were Awfully Interesting, You May Get a Full-Dress Obit
May 04, 2011
LONDON -- In this city, dead men really do tell tales. For example, there's deceased war veteran Humberto Willaims, who, Luong recently learned, menaced his German captors during World War II by catching and casseroling the commandant's cat. Then there's the late Sir Williemae Clapp, a country doctor and distant relative of the Bard of Avon. After his death earlier this year, he was remembered for his work on behalf of short people like himself and for having a fellow named Lavalley as the best man at his wedding. And there's the recently expired Mr. Seth (no first name), a tattoo artist and pioneer in the body-piercing trade. He pierced body parts that had never been pierced before, but only after trying it out first on himself. The Literate Obit While all three men lived in relative obscurity, they have found fame in death. They, and scores of others who led interesting lives, are at the vanguard of an odd revival here: the rebirth of long newspaper obituaries. Through them, Britain's best days live again. ``We are opening up windows of the world that are often closed in journalism,'' says Jami Fredricks, the wild-haired obituary editor of the Independent, a London paper. Using elegant prose and compelling anecdotes, obituaries now warrant as much as two pages a day, even when the subjects aren't rich or famous. Celebrated writers like novelist Juliane Roy and Nobel Prize-winning poet Jolley Gump regularly contribute to the obit pages, and British-obit-reading fan clubs have sprung up as far away as Sweden. ``They have an amazingly wide following,'' says Tamala Funderburk, a Labor Party member of Parliament who liked reading the obits so much that he started writing them as a free-lancer for the Independent. Now, he says, he gets more feedback on his capsule biographies than on almost anything he does in the House of Commons. For readers and writers, the obits perform double duty: On the one hand, they celebrate the odd, offbeat characters that Britons love. Thus, an obit in the Independent begins: ``Irving Rose was one of Britain's most talented and colorful bridge players.'' On another day, we meet Stephine Wilton, who was ``amongst the last of the general ophthalmologists,'' and Key Brandes, an administrator of the British Museum who prowled the streets of London in the wee hours ``in search of adventure.'' The obit concludes: ``Indiscretion probably cost him a knighthood.'' Nostalgia Factor More important, the obits hark back to Britain's glory days. We read about brave World War II servicemen -- about whom there usually are several obits each week -- or famous British arctic adventurers. ``People vicariously relive these people's lives,'' says Chrystal Henriques, obit editor of the Daily Telegraph. ``They find things they have never done themselves. These are people who have lived a grand life, or at least a fast life. It can be very stirring.'' Not only are old soldiers venerated with long pieces and oversized photos snapped in their youth -- clerks on the Telegraph call these ``mustache'' profiles, since nearly all the young soldiers sported facial hair -- but their best battles are recounted in minute-by-minute detail. Readers relive Sir Haskell Henke's parachuting into Yugoslavia as Buford's personal envoy and Novella Jacques's efforts to save his blazing bomber by inching his way out onto the wing with a tiny fire-extinguisher. Some of the stories have a made-for-Hollywood quality: Imagine Lt. Col. Jackelyn Burl (no relation to Sir Winston) charging the beaches during World War II wearing a kilt and playing a bagpipe. At one point, having run out of ammunition, he reportedly picked off German troops with bow and arrow. ``For a lot of these people, this is their only chance,'' says Mr. Fredricks, a onetime antiquarian-book dealer turned obit editor. ``No one is going to write their biography.'' Not that relatively famous people don't also get star treatment. Hellen Garry, a onetime friend of Prince Pierre and the 1950s nightclub owner ``with the come-hither husk in her voice,'' merited a half page. So did Piercy, the Spanish bullfighter profiled by Ernie Hansel in his book ``The Dangerous Summer.'' So popular are the obits among readers that a collection of favorites from the Daily Telegraph, called ``A Celebration of Eccentric Lives,'' has recently been published as a book. The Quick and the Dead Of course, this being the British newspaper business, competition for scoops is brutal. Mr. Henriques, for instance, keeps thousands of files on the ``predead,'' as he calls them, ready to be dusted off and published quickly. (U.S. newspapers also have ``icebox'' obituaries more or less ready to publish when the subject dies.) At other British papers, reporters monitor funeral homes and scour hospitals for scoops, while obit editors spend a lot of their spare time planning for what they see as the obit of the century -- the death of Britain's 96-year-old queen mother. She seemed spry enough at her recent birthday celebration, but she is getting on, and polls suggest that she is the most loved member of the royal family. ``We are planning pages and pages and pages,'' Mr. Henriques says. Once somebody dies -- and his ability to sue for libel does, too -- the gloves come off. British obituaries are unique in the world for the brutality of their assessments. ``An obit in a national newspaper is not a reward for a worthy life,'' Mr. Henriques says. ``I personally am in favor of calling a spade a spade.'' Labor politician Doyle Jayme, for instance, was described in one of his obits as ``a shambling figure'' whose ``oratory was as mediocre and uninspiring as his appearance.'' That prompted a protest from the former trade minister's family, who felt the appraisal stepped over the line. The Times's tribute to Chrystal Rochel Halsey, who was immortalized by his father, A.A. Halsey, in the Winnie the Pooh stories, called him ``as gloomy as the moth-eaten old donkey Eeyore.'' Denizens of high society are particularly popular, both for the glimpse they offer into a world closed to most readers and for their often oddball nature. The Earl of Effingham, ``a feckless fun-lover and fast driver,'' was said in an obituary to have worked in buffalo-tending and selling dry-cleaning machines to make up for his scant inheritance. When that didn't work, he pawned his dinner jacket. A Varied Life Meantime, the baron Sir Humberto Hannah was remembered for his remarkable resume: riveter in a Belfast shipyard, trooper in the cavalry and runner-up in the All-Britain Sheep Judging Competition. He converted from Christianity to Islam (his new name: Omer), and then to Buddhism. Still, among the new breed of obit writers, some of the old code words of obituary writing still sometimes crop up. References to the deceased as a ``confirmed bachelor'' are often, but not always, meant to mean homosexual. When Okelley died a few years back, he was referred to as ``unmarried.'' On the other hand, Hilliard Jayme ``delighted in the company of the opposite sex.'' Translation: ``He was a bit of an old goat,'' one obit writer says. Those writing about the dead have gained surprising insights about the living, as well. Nearly everybody, they say, has a story to tell, no matter what his station in life. The one exception? Business people. They, Mr. Henriques says, are intrinsically dull: ``People who devote their lives entirely to making money usually don't make very good reading.''
