“One day you’ll eat your very last meal. You’ll speak your final words. You’ll take your very last breath. Your heart will stop beating. Your blood will no longer flow. You will die. You will be dead. Death is our future, the only future of which we can be truly certain. It’s inescapable and unavoidable. Everyone who is born has to die. Life is terminal. There is no cure. Neither life nor death is black and white. We don’t come with an expiry date. We might die tomorrow, we might die next week, or we might die in 50 years’ time.” So starts our Book of the Week by funeral director Louise Winter and “death doula” Anna Lyons. Here is an extract in which Louise presents a fascinating history of funerals

In the 19th century, dying was a very different experience to what it is today. People died at home and stayed there until the funeral. The local “laying-out woman” (who also helped with births) would visit the home to carry out the last offices, ensuring the person who had died was dressed in a clean nightgown or perhaps their Sunday best.

Local carpenters or joiners were asked to make a coffin when someone in their community died. They would visit the house to measure the person and then make a coffin, sealing it to prevent any unpleasant leakages.

The person who had died would then be placed in their coffin in the front parlour at home. These men became known as undertakers because they were literally tasked with undertaking the jobs that no one else wanted to do.

Flowers were placed around the room to help disguise any unpleasant odours so friends and neighbours could come to visit. The funeral would take place three or four days later.

Death was messy and uncontrollable, but that didn’t stop the women in the community from taking care of their dead. It was seen as something that belonged at home and in the community, as much as birth or illness. It was just another part of life.

In America, embalming had grown in popularity after President Lincoln’s body had been embalmed and transported from Washington DC to Ohio for burial. The American Civil War also helped to increase its profile; the bodies of young soldiers were embalmed on the battlefield so they could be returned to their families back home, often hundreds of miles away.

By 1900, American training in embalming techniques was being offered to undertakers in the UK, who spotted a business opportunity and became the funeral directors we know today.

They trained as embalmers and opened their own businesses, replacing the front parlours in people’s homes with “funeral parlours” and providing “Chapels of Rest” where the dead could “rest”.

They commercialised death, providing mass-market funerals for anyone who was prepared to pay the price, turning funerals into a retail opportunity for the British high street.

In 1948, the National Health Service was established in the UK and, with that, attitudes towards health care began to change. People died in hospitals rather than at home. Death was seen as something that was unhygienic, unpleasant and frightening and care of the dead was willingly handed over to the now well-established funeral directors, who charged for the service.

Some funeral directors have made it their mission to protect us from the perceived horrors of our dead, as though we couldn’t possibly cope with the reality. As if what we don’t know, and can’t see, couldn’t possibly hurt us.

All of those net curtains and dusty plastic flowers in their shops confirm the view that death should be hidden away, shielded from public view. Out of sight, and preferably out of mind.

Change is inevitable, nothing ever stays the same. As our society and culture changes, so do our traditions and the systems we have in place.

The funeral system we have now isn’t even that old. As society continues to change, so will our funeral system. It needs to serve the people who use it, in a way that is relevant to them.

Today it’s more feminine traits – compassion, empathy, flexibility, gentleness and creativity – that are leading the way in changing funerals for the better.

It’s unlikely that we’re going to re-establish laying-out woman in our local communities, but we do need to create a way of taking care of our dead that works for our society and embodies these feminine traits. As society is moving away from more patriarchal attitudes, so is death.

I’ve noticed that many of our clients don’t want to be shielded from the realities of death. They ask questions and want to be told the truth in response. They want to get involved with washing and dressing the person who has died, even if they don’t want to have the person at home.

We don’t necessarily need to return to how things were in the early 19th century, but we can take the elements that resonate with us and interpret them in a way that works for today’s society.

Even the funeral directors of the 1960s, who were trained to offer a distraught bereaved person a cigarette, could understand that women were a valuable addition to their business, although women were permitted to be “lady assistants” rather than fully fledged funeral directors.

This is an extract from We All Know How this Ends: Lessons About Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter – out now. Order a copy here.

Louise will be our guest on A Drink with the Idler this Thursday, 26 October 6-7pm.

Our September/October issue is available is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and in around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.