ESTHER RANTZEN: I asked Mail readers to help me plan my funeral. Your choices

Release time：2024-05-07 16:11:32 Source：Culture Currents news portal

The wonderful privilege of working on television is that you actually join your audience in their own homes, like real friends. Only, our viewers have the added advantage that when we’re boring or irritating, they can just switch us off.

The stories we told on That’s Life! — the consumer programme I presented and produced for a merry, memorable 21 years — relied on our viewers; their letters became the stories we told. And it meant I developed an even closer relationship with them.

As a result, whenever I’ve asked the viewers, my friends, for help, starting charities like Childline and The Silver Line, I’m lucky enough to have been inundated with it. The generous, compassionate public always gave us the support and trust we needed. I’m so grateful.

And so I found myself turning to my old friends once again recently. A year on from being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, my children told me I must plan my funeral. I remembered how grateful I was to my beloved late husband, Desmond Wilcox, who planned his memorial service down to the last detail.

Like him, I decided I’d like my service to contain music and readings I love, not all gloomy, plenty of laughter. But how to choose?

A year on from being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, Dame Esther is meticulously planning her funeral

Dame Esther was grateful to her beloved late husband, Desmond Wilcox, who planned his memorial service down to the last detail

Baffled, I followed the habit of my life-time, and asked you, the readers of the Daily Mail, for help. And you didn’t fail me. Over the past weeks, I’ve been reading the suggestions you sent me, listening to music and reading poems, sometimes moved to tears, sometimes guffawing with laughter.

I have been completely overwhelmed by the kindness, and the talent, of literally hundreds of people who sent me the help I desperately needed. So thank you all so much.

Prior to my public plea, I had got as far as choosing my favourite poet, John Donne, and his lovely poem starting: ‘Sweetest love, I do not go for weariness of thee’. It ends with the magical line ‘They who one another keep alive ne’er parted be’. From the sublime to the very funny, I also chose Pam Ayres’ poem ‘Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth.’ My thoughts exactly.

A Reader’s Ode for Esther... 

So now she’s fallen off her perch,

Hence we’re gathered here in church

For apt (perhaps ungodly) words

To celebrate that best of birds

Whose spirit soared to dizzy heights

Transforming TV viewing nights,

With dazzling smile and lethal claws

She ripped up rules and social mores.

She fought injustice, righted wrongs, 

Interspersed with silly songs

And gags, good humour, gales of laughter,

Phallic parsnips and much dafter

Freakish things like mad dogs growling

‘Sausages’ which had us howling

In between the frequent tears

She shed with us throughout the years.

She stirred emotions, mangled hearts,

Cajoled us all to play our parts

By speaking up and changing laws

For those who’d drawn the shortest straws.

Small wonder now the world will fete her,

Our cherished people’s gladiator

With wit so sharp and humour rude.

She loved to sunbathe in the nude,

Neighbours weren’t at all distressed

(They simply thought her clothes weren’t pressed!)

So how should we say our last goodbyes?

With grieving hearts and heavy sighs?

Yes, all of that but though she’s gone

Her legacy continues on.

She shook the world and made it better

And in return we won’t forget her.

The dental gods may not have blessed her,   

But millions of us loved ‘our Esther’.

But what next? This is where you came in.

There have been practical suggestions. For example, the website Whiteballoon contains advice for anyone planning a funeral. Really helpful. 

Another fabulous idea I hadn’t thought of: one person decided her ashes should be loaded into a firework, so she would be launched into the sky in a shower of stars.

Two people told me about funerals where little bags of daffodil bulbs were handed out to the congregation — a joyful reminder of their lost loved one each spring.

The hardest challenge was to choose between your wonderful ideas for music. I must apologise to all the fans of That’s Life!, who suggested the Sinatra song with that title. It was the most popular suggestion by far, but it brings back difficult memories for me.

While the show was on the air, every time I stumbled over a paving stone or failed to back into a parking space, someone watching would shout ‘That’s life, Esther!’ I would have to smile appreciatively. Not easy. So although everyone else would of course enjoy its appropriateness, that song might cause me an involuntary shudder in the afterlife.

Another apology to everyone who suggested My Way, Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life and Time To Say Goodbye. All brilliant songs. The fact I haven’t chosen them is down to my desire to be original. Which just shows how arrogant I am, even in death. I am hoping for something other people may not know, something more personal.

I can’t say your ideas always make it easy for me. Like the person who said: ‘My suggestion is for you to record a welcome to all present at your service . . . Let them know that you are with them in spirit and wish the day to be joyous, a reflection of your extraordinary life.’

Wow. There’s a challenge. Would my old That’s Life! warm-up work? I used to welcome the studio audiences each week by getting them to all shake hands with each other. That might be too alarming at a funeral.

That said, at my husband’s funeral we began with a Thought For The Day he had recorded after he’d narrowly survived a heart attack. Somehow having his voice, and his authentic thoughts about life and death, at the very start put his stamp on everything that followed. And it did indeed mean his spirit was there throughout. So I’ll try to record a suitable welcome.

When it comes to choosing readings, many suggested Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep. It describes how when we die we survive in the sunlight, the starlight, the beauty in the world around us; it is incredibly healing.

Several people had found a poem I had never heard of, called Dash, by Linda Ellis. The dash, she points out, is what comes between your date of birth and the date you died on your tombstone. The poem says: ‘For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash, What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.’ It is thoughtful and thought-provoking, so I’m very grateful for that suggestion.

I must also thank all those who told me their own stories of loss. One lady, who lost her husband of 60 years, two years ago, chose a remarkable poem by Joyce Grenfell for his funeral.

It reads: ‘If I should die before the rest of you, break not a flower nor inscribe a stone. Nor when I’m gone speak in a Sunday voice, but be the usual selves that I have known. Weep if you must, parting is hell. But life goes on, so sing as well.’

Another lady began her message, ‘I guess you remind me of my mother. She was a tough old bird, too.’ Her mother had trusted her to sort out the funeral, and as her mother’s favourite singer was Judy Garland, she ended the service with Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The perfect choice.

Dame Esther surrounded by her children and grandchildren 

It makes me wonder whether I too should leave it to my children to sort everything out after I’ve gone. I decide to give them my list, with my permission to alter it in any way they wish.

Thanks, too, to all those who made me laugh with their messages. Very welcome indeed, when you’re planning your own funeral.

Pearl, 85, wrote that she has requested friends leave her funeral to Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Have a drink, have a drink, have a drink on me’. She wrote: ‘I want my wake to be cheerfully full of tears of laughter, not sorrow. Just hope there will be enough in my bank account to cover the bar bill.

A Wham! fan with terminal breast cancer will have the wake before she dies so she can see all her friends and family. Her choice of song being Wake Me Up Before I Go-Go. She ends her message: ‘Good luck Esther, don’t give up. I’m still here seven years after my terminal diagnosis.’

I’ve been especially impressed by 15 poems you have written yourselves. From mischievous limericks to kindly sonnets, how very generous to take the time to write them, and how talented you are! One irresistible Ode was written by Ann Knight, 63, from North Cornwall, in the style of That’s Life’s own poet, comedian Cyril Fletcher. So let me end my funeral, as I ended every That’s Life!, by saying ‘And Finally . . .’

Related articles