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Laura Carter, Funeral Director at Shakespeare Funerals

I’ve grown up in the industry. Mum and Dad bought Gilgandra Funerals in 1995 when I had just turned one year old. They took me all around NSW going to cemeteries and putting monuments in and that sort of thing. Before and after school, I’d be on the other end of a screed concreting with Dad or helping Mum wash the concrete off all the tools. When I was about 14 or 15 I started going to funerals with Mum and Dad and helping them. After high school, I went away to university at Newcastle. I did a Bachelor of Commerce with an Accounting Major. The reason I did accounting was not necessarily to sit behind a desk and be an accountant. Growing up with Mum and Dad, I understood business, but it was the financial side that I didn’t have a good understanding of. I’ve always been interested in business anyway and the degree is a really good thing to have, I can use it anywhere. During my time at uni, I was still doing admin and bookkeeping work via correspondence for my parents and I’d come back and help them during holidays too.

At the start of this year, I moved back to Dubbo permanently. I knew

I’d always eventually come back here but I didn’t know whether it was going to be five years, 10 years, 20 years or next week. I was looking to buy a house in Newcastle because that was where I was living and this house came up for sale in Dubbo. I fell in love with it and I thought ‘yeah, I can move back now’. The actual management of Shakespeare Funerals is new for me. Becoming manager and taking that next step was quite memorable.

I see a lot of people my age losing parents and grandparents. It’s hard

because I can relate to them at a personal level. But, in a way, growing up in the industry I have become accustomed to just do the job and push it aside so that I am not personally taking on all of the emotional load. I go to funerals and I tear up watching people lose a loved one and I hold onto it, but I have taught myself to just let go afterwards. I can’t carry it with me, otherwise I couldn’t do my job.

I do love my job. That has always been a difficult question because if you say yes, then people think ‘well you’re morbid’, but if you say no then they think ‘well why don’t you go and do something else’. People hand over their family member and have enough trust in us to help them get through an absolute difficult time, and at the end of it they can come out of it and think ‘yes we had support’.

Photo by Wendy Merrick Interview by Darcee Nixon