Meet Your Funeral Celebrant

Episode 10 - Sue Williamson Sue is a Funeral Celebrant based in Hartford, Cheshire, England. To find out more about Sue, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website.

Episode 9 - Christopher Courtney Christopher Courtney is a Funeral Celebrant based in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England. To find out more about Christopher, visit his website or see his listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website.

Episode 8 - Michelle Harvey Michelle Harvey is a Funeral Celebrant based in Orpington, Kent, England. To find out more about Michelle, visit her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 7 - Liza Riggway Liza Riggway is a Funeral Celebrant based in Warsash, Southampton, Hampshire, UK. To find out more about Liza, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 6 - Peter Wyllie Peter Wyllie is a Funeral Celebrant based in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK. To find out more about Peter, visit his website or see his listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 5 - Judy Mansfield Judy Mansfield is a Funeral Celebrant based in Long Itchington, Warwickshire, England. To find out more about Judy, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 4 - Justine Wykerd Justine is an award-winning Funeral Celebrant based in Studley near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. To find out more about Justine, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 3 - Peter Ryder Peter is a Funeral Celebrant based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. To find out more about Peter, visit his website or see his listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 2 - Sally Ward Sally is a Funeral Celebrant based in Belper, Derbyshire, England. To find out more about Sally, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Support Meet Your Funeral Celebrant by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/meet-your-funeral-celebrant Find out more on the Meet Your Funeral Celebrant website. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode 1 - Terri Shanks Terri is a Funeral Celebrant based in Worthing, Sussex, England. As well as her work as a celebrant, she also trains Funeral Celebrants for the Fellowship of Professional Celebrants. To find out more about Terri, visit her website or see her listing on Funeral Celebrants UK. Transcript Tony Piper: Welcome to Meet Your Funeral Celebrant. My name is Tony Piper, and in each episode of this podcast I'll be talking with a funeral celebrant. As well as getting to know them and exploring their approach to funerals, each guest will also share some useful tips. I hope this helps you find the right celebrant for you so you can create a good send off. Let's begin. This episode I'm delighted to be talking to Terri Shanks. Terri is a funeral celebrant based in Worthing, on the south coast of England. As well as her work as a celebrant, she also trains funeral celebrants for the Fellowship of Professional Celebrants. Hi, Terri. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here. Terri Shanks: Thank you, Tony. Lovely to be here and to talk to you. Tony Piper: Wonderful. Now look, why don't you fill in some of the gaps and tell us a little bit about yourself. Terri Shanks: As you've already mentioned, I live in Worthing in West Sussex. I live down here. This is my hometown where I'm born and bred. I live down here with my two children. I have Georgia, who is 19 now, and Cameron who is 5. Tony Piper: Aww. That's a nice part of the world to live in. Terri Shanks: It's a lovely part of the world to live in. I always think we have the best of both. We have the South Downs, the sea. It's lovely, lovely place to live. Tony Piper: What a dream. Now look, Terri, how did you end yup becoming a funeral celebrant? It's an unusual profession, isn't it? Terri Shanks: It is an unusual profession. To be honest, it was a sort of a series of lots of things which would probably take me all day to explain, but I used to work as, I suppose, and [amateurist 00:01:35] singer, a cast call singer. But I was always asked to sing at a lot of funerals, both in churches and crematoriums. I sat through a lot of funerals where, to be honest with you, you could have at anybody's funeral because it was very much one size fits all. I felt the people were there, but not necessarily present, and not healed and not touched and not moved. For me, that was really important. It was actually after several years of doing this that I met actually with a humanist celebrant at a wedding and just got into discussions with her. I thought, "Wow, I could actually do this as a profession," but it took some further investigation. For me, I was actually raised as a Roman Catholic. Whilst I don't attend church and to be honest haven't done for many years, I would still class myself as spiritual person. That led me into the path of becoming an independent celebrant where I knew I could offer funerals for people that were very personalised, very meaningful, but didn't completely eradicate religion or spirituality, that actually we could have a blending of both. That, for me, was very important as I know it is for a lot of people. There are many, many people out there who don't necessarily have an affiliation with any organised religion but also wouldn't class themselves as atheists either, and therefore like to have a light element of religion or spirituality included at a time of a funeral, which obviously is hugely important. Tony Piper: Sure. Yes, there's a big group of people who consider themselves spiritual but not religious. Terri Shanks: Yeah, absolutely. Tony Piper: It's very important. What do you love most about the job? Terri Shanks: Oh, I love all of it. I truly do. People always comment about how much passion that I have for my work. I think that's true. I love the families that I work with. I feel that it's an honour that people welcome me and take me into their homes and their hearts at such a difficult time. I love spending time with all the families, learning about their loved one's life. To be honest, I'm fascinated by people's life stories and personal memories. You hear personal stories of people who served in the war or were evacuated, all that things. I remember one thing that really stuck in my mind was conducting a funeral for a 92 year old man, who not long before he died had actually written down his personal memoirs of being a 17 year old having to leave his family and going off to war, and then the stories that unfolded from there. I just remember reading it with just tears just streaming down my face and just being so moved by this just one individual's story. It's all those things, but then, from the other side, there are people where somebody might say, "She didn't really do much. She was just mum." I always think that, kind of just mum. I'm a mum myself, but that was the person who carried you and raised you, who cooked and cleaned for you, who grazed your knees and dried your tears, guided you to be the person that you are today. It doesn't matter how elaborate somebody's life has been or fairly simply lived, there's always lots of positive and lovely things to say about people. Tony Piper: What a wonderful thing. What's your most useful skill? Terri Shanks: Oh, there's a question. I think a celebrant needs many different skills. I guess an obvious one is that ability to be able to write and deliver ceremonies that are personalised, creative, and engaging, but you can only do that if you truly engage with the families, that you listen to what is being said, but also sometimes you have to listen to what isn't being said. Tony Piper: Of course. Terri Shanks: The body language and those hidden words that sometimes people just can't communicate to you in words at time of bereavement. For me, I think possibly my most useful skill is communicating with people and really understanding them so that I can be their voice on the day, and being able to connect with people very quickly at a deep level. That is privilege really of being able to offer that understanding and care. Tony Piper: And connecting with people at a time when connecting with them is not the easiest thing in the world for them. Terri Shanks: Absolutely. That's so true. People are bereaved and they have 101 different things going on logistically and emotionally. Quite often, I'm a stranger going into somebody's home, so that trust and connection, it is hugely important for me, but moreso, obviously, for them. Tony Piper: Of course. Look, what makes a good funeral? Terri Shanks: Oh, what makes a good funeral? It is quite difficult some time for people to actually think about having a good funeral, because a funeral is often a time that people dread. I hear it time and time again,"I'm absolutely dreading next Wednesday at the funeral," so to be able to turn that around and make it a positive experience is something very special in itself. For me, I think a good funeral is giving the family exactly what they want. What would be right for you, Tony, wouldn't necessarily be right for me. There are still people out there that do deliver these one size fits all funerals, but every life is unique, and therefore every funeral should be completely unique as well. My experience over 15 years now as a celebrant has been some of the best funerals has been where there's been the most involvement from the family. When they can stand up and be involved or give tributes, that's really, really important. Tony Piper: That's really interesting because I wondered whether sometimes families want, in a way, for the celebrant to do most of the hard work because it is such hard work to do on the day, but what you've just described is a sense of participation as being important. Terri Shanks: Absolutely. Participation is hugely important, but it doesn't necessarily have to be participation on the day, because I'm aware that people's emotions to stand up and deliver a tribute to a loved one ... Even as a celebrant, I've done this for family members of my own, and being on the other side you suddenly realise how difficult that is, but being present to participate in that meeting, maybe being able to write their own memories, either for myself or somebody else to read on their behalf, it might be just participating in way of choosing music, choosing readings. All of that involvement is hugely important. Maybe even just family carrying the coffin in to the chaplain and acting as pallbearers on the day, that's a huge honour to carry somebody's coffin into a chapel. There's lots of ways that people can be involved, can be hands on, either on the day or simply in the preparations of the funeral. Tony Piper: Very interesting, so it sounds as if participation and what you say and what you do is maybe more important that some other aspects of the funeral. Terri Shanks: I guess so. I guess so. It just depends. I think what's important is the family have what they want, and knowing that the unique needs and wants of every single family is different. Tony Piper: Sure. What's not so important then, when it comes to funerals? Terri Shanks: That's a difficult question to answer because what's not important to me might be hugely important to you. I think the way I can answer that is that if it is important to a bereaved family, then it becomes important to me. I don't think I can answer and say, "That's not important," because somebody else would actually say, "Well, actually, that's hugely important to me." But perhaps, I think, in a sense what's not important is what other people think or expect. For the bereaved family, they should try and put together a funeral, which is exactly what they want or what their loved one wanted, and not be influenced just to sort of impress, or that's what we've been to before so that's what we should do. A lot of people will follow tradition because that's what they know, but to question and to say I