• last year
Transcript
00:00 When I was in school at the time I got the opportunity to do work placement and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.
00:06 I decided to come and do work experience with Chisholm's.
00:09 They've always done my family funerals.
00:11 I could see from the way George and Dave conducted themselves that this is something I'd like to do
00:16 and this is something I'd like to help people in Inverness because it's obviously a very important job.
00:21 I was 16 years old at that point.
00:23 I started off by going out to funerals, observing George and David carrying out their duties.
00:29 I would carry the coffin maybe at the cemetery if it was required.
00:32 When Covid came at that point I sat my exams.
00:35 I could have gone on to university if I had chosen but I didn't really enjoy the online learning
00:40 although down the line this is something I had to do to sit my current exams.
00:44 It was all online learning so it's quite ironic in that fact that I didn't want to do it but I ended up doing it anyway.
00:50 I went on to train to become a funeral director, shadowing David and George.
00:55 Once I had done that, George put me forward to study with the National Association of Funeral Directors
01:03 doing their diploma in funeral directing.
01:05 This was a course I'd done over two to three years.
01:08 I'd write 48 essays in the last year there and then sit an hours oral exam and then a three hour written exam as well.
01:18 I'm thankful I did it at the age I am because I was still fresh from school.
01:21 Anybody can become a funeral director. I mean tomorrow if you wanted to you could open up a branch and become a funeral director.
01:27 Sitting the exams and doing the course will develop your knowledge and maybe specialise subjects.
01:35 In your exam you will need to know what documentation is required for say repatriation, for bequeathing a body, burying a body at sea.
01:43 Now the last burial at sea in Scotland took place I think in 1994 or something like that so it doesn't happen very often.
01:48 It's a very, very difficult time for people and I enjoy creating relationships with people and forming relationships with them.
01:57 They're trusting me to look after their loved one. It's a very big responsibility, you know, caring for someone's loved one.
02:04 It takes a great bit of trust from the family as well to leave their loved one with us.
02:11 My favourite part of my job is actually conducting funerals on the day.
02:15 On my first day I was doing the work experience I was introduced to a deceased.
02:24 I was shown a deceased in a coffin for viewing so this deceased was already prepared and looking very well for the family to come and view.
02:35 Later on in that day I went up to the Raigmore mortuary with my colleague David and we conveyed the deceased from Raigmore to the funeral home.
02:46 So that was sort of the first time I'd seen a deceased, maybe just after they'd passed away.
02:51 So it's very different from when they pass away to when a family, a loved one, views the deceased.
02:56 I saw the two aspects, someone prepared and then someone who had just passed away.
03:02 There's a great difference between the two and I knew on that day that the work that the mortuary team put in to get a deceased from when they passed away to a family viewing
03:15 was a great deal of preparation and a great deal of time and effort and they obviously care about what they're doing because of how well presented the deceased is.
03:22 The two weeks I then maybe learned how to dress deceased and prepare deceased for viewing and I learned to make coffins as well, how to build coffins.
03:31 And sort of when I was coming in on a Friday afternoon and a Saturday morning it would sort of be more the preparation type, whether that be building coffins, cutting plates or dressing deceased and preparing for viewing.
03:45 I did this and then when I came on full time I did more on funerals because I wasn't obviously at school.
03:53 I could go out to funerals throughout the week.
03:55 It didn't phase me as such when dealing with death.
04:00 I do go to church and I've got a Christian belief and that helped me a lot in my job.
04:05 I didn't really think about it, you know.
04:07 I think that's the thing about this job is if you think too much about it, it could play on your mind a lot.
04:11 If you think too much about what you're actually doing it could, it would sort of affect you mentally I think.
04:21 So sometimes when dealing with things you sort of just have to switch off and not take it personally.
04:26 You do pay a lot of attention to what you're doing but at the same time if you think too greatly about what you're doing it could mentally affect you as well.
04:33 I was obviously still at school at the time when I first started and my friends all thought it was probably a bit strange, you know.
04:42 I didn't grow up in a family who owned a funeral business.
04:46 However, I'm likely to believe from my gran actually.
04:49 My great-great-grandfather owned a funeral director's in Inverness but sadly it closed.
04:55 My family, they know the importance I think of funeral directors and how they deal with pre-families.
05:04 As I said Chisholm's was always who my family have used and George has been here 30 years and David was here 40 years.
05:12 So they knew who I was going to work for.
05:14 They were supportive of me going into this job.
05:16 They thought it was a good job and I think it's a very good job so I'm really glad I did do it.
05:23 I would encourage other younger folk to go into it.
05:27 It's a job a lot of young people may not consider because I suppose death is a bit of a taboo subject isn't it?
05:36 It's a career you could do the rest of your life.
05:40 There's one thing for sure you're always going to need a funeral director.
05:43 The ongoing future of technology and things like that, things might change, jobs might not be as secure with technology taking over.
05:52 However, everybody's going to need a funeral director so it's one thing for sure you're guaranteed a job.