Why must funeral eulogies make misery a spectator sport?

ARadio 4 documentary entitled A Life’s Work reports that undertakers blame Eastenders and other sensationalist soaps for a rise in fisticuffs at funerals. They claim that writers’ predilections for internecine arguments, coffins crashing to the floor and characters leaping into graves while wailing, “Me old muuum!” have an impact on real-life mourners. Graveside brawls are, apparently, now de rigueur.

I wonder about all this. I mean, it’s not as if the funeral in Hamlet is exactly decorous. When emotions run high, relatives abound and booze is overflowing, not all of us can be relied on to behave well. Which is why I chose not to attend my parents’ funerals – too pained to make my misery a spectator sport. “You’ll regret it,” the world and his wife proclaimed. I never have.

I may be a lifelong atheist, but I am an extremely Protestant sort of atheist – with a phobia of ceremonial exhibitionism, and distaste for the Victorian high camp considered obligatory at funerals as at weddings.

Moreover, as the oldest of five extremely different individuals – with five extremely different relationships with their parents – a no-show felt like the diplomatic response.

Before fixed on my course, there were a couple of savage altercations about what my mother’s funeral should consist of. I didn’t agree with all the decisions made, and removing my presence meant I didn’t have to.

Far more generous to allow those to whom the ceremony meant something to knock themselves out (without big sister actually doing said knocking).

The wisdom of this policy was confirmed by the so-called friends I came to recognise as falling into the category of “funeral groupie”. “So looking forward to seeing you!” they trilled, as if my parents’ deaths were the social events of the season. My desire to punch said individuals, with a Phil Mitchell-style right hook, remains strong.