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‘Lives celebrated — that’s what funerals should be about’

Posted onPosted on 29th Apr

A year ago Mansfield public relations expert Wayne Swiffin launched a new service to help people to tell the story of their lives. A couple of months after setting up www.livescelebrated.co.uk he used his listening, writing and storytelling skills further to extend his services and become an independent funeral celebrant. Here he talks about his new role. 

It may come as a bit of a surprise but I do not see that funerals should just be about death. Indeed, far from it. You see, I see funerals as being an opportunity to talk about someone’s life.

As well as being a PR advisor and occasional journalist, I’m an independent funeral celebrant who is based in the Mansfield area. I see it as my job to create funeral services that are all about the person who has died, but deliver services that benefit the people left behind. 

By the way, according to the dictionary, a celebrant is ‘a person who leads a ceremony, such as a marriage or a funeral’.

I am not a religious person, in fact, I am a humanist. We humanists believe that it is human experience and rational thinking that offer a guide to the choices we make in life and how we live. If you believe, that’s great, each to their own. 

(While the services I lead are not religious, if you do want a small prayer saying, I am happy to do this as it is about making the funeral as perfect as it can be).

It is my job to help people to celebrate the life of a loved one who has passed away. I will interview family and spend time getting to know a little bit about the person who has died. 

As a result, funeral services are very personal — and that’s how they should be. 

 

I’ve been to funerals where there has hardly been a mention of what the person was like or have any stories about them. How can that be right?

So, how did I get into being a celebrant?

I have throughout my 25-year career in journalism and public relations helped people to tell their stories. Becoming a celebrant is a way I can help people like you to tell the life stories of those you have loved.

When I was a reporter all those years ago, I loved talking to people. I didn’t much care for court reporting, and while I often went to watch Mansfield Town, I wasn’t so good at sports reporting.

I did like business and politics, but what I loved most was going to see someone who had a human interest story to tell.

News editors would send me out to speak with relatives of people who had died. It wasn’t a macabre thing, it was about giving people the opportunity to talk about their loved ones.

And, very often, they spoke in detail. They showed me a person’s photographs, toys they’d had as a child, books, paintings, collections of football memorabilia.

All these things would go into me being able to write a story about a life.

That’s what being a celebrant is all about, although instead of seeing my words in print, I have to stand up and deliver them.

I haven’t been a celebrant for that long, but I have conducted a number of services and, so far, people have afterwards told me they have been perfect.

Yes, I will continue to learn and take advice from funeral directors, funeral arrangers and other celebrants I look up to, and from the Association of Independent Celebrants, a group I am a member of.

I can honestly say that I love being a funeral celebrant, as it is an honour and a privilege to help people at a time when they need it most.

To find out more, visit www.livescelebrated.co.uk, email [email protected], or call Wayne on 07854 689914.