Casual Bearers
“Wanted – Casual Bearers, No experience necessary,
training will be given” -
So read the sign outside the under-takers,
Which had my heart sinking, but it got me to thinking,
When I studied the note on that door, did they really know
what they were asking for?
I assumed there was an occasional call for someone to
carry the pall,
That sometimes they needed a hand, to join their mourning
band,
That it might be on demand and that they’d pay cash in
hand.
But their lazily-worded expression had formed up a quite different
impression,
For I saw “casuals” as those who wouldn’t care,
Turning up un-shaven, without washing their hair,
Appearing in trainers and leisure-wear, which would
hardly be fair,
Upon the recently bereaved, who’d feel justifiably peeved,
Let down, and badly deceived.
As if the service were not of the best, at the Crem or
the Chapel of Rest,
The casuals’ attire would be quite dire, as they waited
for the fire, of the funeral pyre,
And would not be of black silk, not sombre, or owt of
that ilk,
But chattering and nattering, cracking a gag, or having a
fag,
With no respect for the one that had died, as they gawped
at the graveside.
So - that note I think they should be re-writing, or else
they’ll find themselves fighting,
For contracts of zero hours, set amongst the funeral
flowers.
