For reasons that will become
evident, the names of the Funeral Director, their staff, and the location of
the Crematorium have not been disclosed.
Vintage Lorry Funerals was booked
for a South London funeral by a lovely Family
who sadly believed that they hadn’t done enough for their Dad towards the end
of his life and consequently they wanted to ensure that he had a great send
off. David Hall’s wife was involved in detailed planning for the funeral at an
early stage as there was no parking allowed outside the Funeral Home, which was
surrounded by double red lines. Luckily internet research identified an area
marked ‘loading only’ on part of the road in an adjoining street and after some
involved discussions the local Council reserved the facility and reluctantly
waived their normal charge.
The Deceased had been an avid
Arsenal Fan, with the ‘Arsenal Shield’ being the centrepiece of the display in
which every Floral Tribute was red & white. So in the heartland of Crystal
Palace Fans, David was loading Arsenal themed flowers, however, no derogatory
remarks were made by passersby. David took pictures and sent them to Arsenal
F.C. who featured the funeral in a Match Day Programme and it is understood
that Arsene Wenger was very happy about the respect shown for his club south of
the river.
David had longer than usual to
take pictures because the three limousines that were booked to follow the 1950
Leyland Beaver were running late. It was Friday afternoon, the funeral was
booked for the last slot at the Crematorium, however, the limousine drivers
were on their 4th job of the day and were delayed. In these
situations David doesn’t get stressed out and remembers one of his old Dad’s
sayings, ‘Don’t worry about things that you can do nowt about.’
Eventually the limousine drivers
arrived, the coffin was loaded and although 45 minutes had originally been
allocated to travel from the Funeral Home to the house, only 15 minutes were
left. The task looked impossible to everyone involved and the mood amongst
everybody was very low.
The female Funeral Director, who
had worked with David before, paged the cortege onto the busy main road,
turning right across two lanes of oncoming traffic and into the right hand lane
as a right turn was required at the traffic lights one hundred yards down the
road. As David approached the lights he noticed that there was no specific
right turn filter light and given the high volume of oncoming traffic he would
have to wait until the light went from green to red and then move across the
two lanes, this type of operation has been sanctioned by Police in South London.
However, as David waited at the
traffic lights showing a red light he knew that waiting for a gap would loose
further time that he didn’t have in the first place. He looked across the
yellow lined box junction towards a Bus in the first lane and a car in the
outside lane alongside the Bus, and he put the Leyland Beaver in a high gear.
When the light turned green, David let out the clutch and the 1950 Leyland
Beaver shot out into the oncoming traffic. The Bus Driver realised what David
was doing and stopped, however, the car alongside the Bus didn’t stop and a
collision seemed imminent. The Funeral Director, sitting in the passenger seat,
was petrified, but luckily the car stopped and David continued across the boxed
junction, seeing in his wing mirrors that the three limousines had followed the
Leyland Beaver.
Near the Crystal Palace
ground there was a steep inclined road with cars parked on the left hand side
of the road. With a stream of cars coming down the hill towards the Leyland
Beaver, the sensible thing to have done would have been to wait at the bottom
of the hill until a gap appeared in the traffic. However, David sensed that the
road was just wide enough for three vehicles and he put his foot down and the
Leyland Beaver shot up the hill doing 28 miles per hour. Experienced drivers
coming down the hill got over and David passed by with only inches to spare.
Inexperienced drivers panicked and some mounted the pavement to get out of the
way.
David pulled up at the house 30
seconds earlier than planned with the Family oblivious to the problems and the
journey that was originally planned for 45 minutes was actually achieved in
14.5 minutes. David got out of the cab as if nothing had happened to see if any
extra flowers were at the house. The Lead Driver from the first limousine
didn’t go to the Family as normal but rushed towards David and gave him a huge
hug, ‘I ain’t never seen assertive driving like that.’
Leaving the house the Funeral
Director was using her Sat Nav and said to David, ‘Tom, Tom says turn left.’
David said, ‘Dave, Dave says straight across,’ cognisant that his detailed
research had highlighted that taking the second left rather than the first left
was advantageous due to wider streets.
On the way to the Crematorium the
Lead Driver in the first limousine flashed his lights repeatedly signifying
that David should stop. Unfortunately the 3D Lorry and Trailer Floral Tribute
which was ever so lifelike was becoming more real than expected in that the
‘Cab’ was beginning to tilt as if the ‘Lorry’ was being serviced. The Lead
Driver asked David, ‘How are we going to fix this?’ David said, ‘No problem’,
taking out a length of green wire and two small polystyrene sheets from his
tool box. The ‘Cab’ was straightened and secured in no time and the Lead Driver
said, ‘You have done that better than Macgyver!’
As the cortege entered the
Crematorium David sensed that something was about to happen as before the
limousines had come to a stop the doors were being flung open and mourners were
racing to confront a group of people all holding yellow flowers. There were
fists flying, the language was atrocious and that was only the women! The
people with the yellow flowers started to throw individual stems towards the
coffin on the deck. One of the mourners instructed David to climb up onto the
deck and stop the yellow flowers landing amongst the red ones. The yellow stems
rained down like French arrows at the Battle of Hastings and David was
struggling manfully to catch each one in flight. Onlookers oblivious to the
dangerous and inflammable situation may have thought it was like a scene from
‘It’s a Knockout’ which was on TV screens during the 70’s & 80’s.
David was astounded when the
diminutive female Funeral Director got between two burly men and begged them to
stop fighting. She then requested the people with the yellow flowers should not
enter the chapel and respect the wishes of the mourners. Then for the first
time in 10 minutes order was restored and silence prevailed. David gathered up
the yellow flowers into a nice bunch and thought that he would take them home
for his wife. However, David’s good intentions were undone in 10 seconds when
one of the mourners stamped on the flowers. David learnt that the Family lived
at some distance from the Deceased and it was alleged that some of the people
with the yellow flowers had developed an unacceptable relationship with the
Deceased and it was also alleged that some of the Deceased’s funds may have
been misappropriated.
The Lead Driver from the first
limousine came up to David and shook his hands saying, ‘Thank you for all your
efforts today, we were in a huge hole but the actions you took saved the day
and saved our bacon!’
