Where dignity is laid to rest

St Stephens; the service was held in the open air, as was the custom with the poorest classes of funeral, while a few acquaintances stood around. They followed as far as the city gates before turning back in the face of a violent storm. The hearse continued on its way, unaccompanied, to the churchyard of St Mark's, Vienna. Without a note of music, without a friend, the remains of Mozart were committed to the earth - not even in a grave of his own, but in a pauper's grave. The strictest economy was observed.

I am standing in Linn Cemetery, Glasgow, on a cold, futile day, watching the arm of a giant digger pulling another clump of earth from the ground. The disturbed earth drops silently onto the green tarpaulin, beside men in waterproof coats who dig with weary boredom. But the digger and the men are used to it and they dig more. One man laughs, another tips his spent cigarette ash into the fresh hole while their boots suck on the cloying mud. They focus their arms. They shovel earth like they shovel potatoes. Another snatch of soil, another quiet passing.

In the foreground, toy windmills turn above children's graves, while a stiff mother bares the brunt of the elements. I watch, invasively, as she stands there, bound to the earth, feeling useless, looking at the detritus around her. A white cross, a candle, a photograph, a snatched smile - she tries to untangle her tragedy, all the while remaining upright with dignity. Soil in the barrow near her, soil to be pushed up the cemetery hill, soil to be replaced by hair still soft, eyes closed harshly.

But I am not here for them. I am here to witness the burial of John Douglas, a man I have never known and know very little of, who died a few months short of his 80th year. Beside me, seven or eight solitary figures bow their heads over his coffin. They are his last friends. The minister speaks his best to the mourners, a raggle-taggle, elderly bunch. They are clients of the Talbot Association, an organisation which cares for homeless men and women. An old man throws mud on top of the coffin - it breaks in his hands with few stones. An elderly lady, in a borrowed jacket, says, with unshakeable pessimism: ''Cheerio, John. I hope you have a better life there than you had here.'' The mourners lumber away to their mini-bus.

Linn Cemetery is the final resting place for people like John Douglas, who die without assets, kin, or social network. They lie here, mostly in unmarked graves, like waste material that needs to be cleared away. They are mortal secrets, overlooked for too long. However, for those who die under the outstretched wing of the Talbot Association, they, at least, are granted a dignified farewell. Staff and friends of the recently dead are bussed to the cemetery to pay their last respects. The service is short, the flowers sparse, but the proceedings fitting.

For more than 20 years the Talbot has buried its clients on a piece of land owned by the organisation. Vincent Buchanan, the founder of the Talbot, is also buried there, sheltered by a large Celtic cross which guards the land where they lie. But not everyone in circumstances similar to John Douglas ends their life this way. The rest lie in paupers' graves.

''It is one of the main aspects of our work,'' says Margaret Stevenson, Director of the Talbot Association, ''and I ensure that all new staff know about that. We were founded in 1970 and our philosophy is based on the need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead.''

We are talking about people who, when they die, either have no kin, or no known form of support, or no assets. Or people who are just very poor. When there is no obvious resources the responsibility falls on the local authority to organise a funeral and they do that within a set of guidelines. While the service that is given is often quite satisfactory and thoughtful, sometimes, more often than not, it is like the traditional Victorian pauper burial that elderly people once lived in fear of - often utterly miserable, often unattended by anybody who might have known the person.

All the clients of the Talbot are given the choice, when ill, of being in care units or being nursed. Very few choose to go to hospital. Burial of the dead, and how that is carried out, is, according to Stevenson, of enormous importance to the organisation. If staff are to raise the subject, one of the things they do is talk to clients about their wishes. People are afraid of death generally, so they try to do it before the men and women fall ill. It is, says Stevenson, ''extremely important that those who have been involved with the organisation should be given more than a pauper's send-off. We all think about how we are going to die and we have to trust that other people will do things in some kind of respectful way''.

The Celtic cross stands resolutely as a symbol for the lives of all who have died and are buried there. It marks their graves collectively. ''It should be a basic right for these people to receive more than a paupers' burial from both statutory or voluntary organisations,'' adds Stevenson. ''Pauper graves are mediaeval.''

According to the National Funerals College, a charitable trust, hundreds of people who die each year without leaving a will or next of kin are being piled into ''mass graves''.

Under the Public Health Act, a local authority is obliged to pay for funerals of people who die with no assets. In Glasgow, around 200 burials take place each year at a maximum cost of #600, half the price of the average private funeral. In Edinburgh, around 60 take place. The unmarked graves are eight feet deep and hold up to four coffins with three inches of earth between them.

Professor Malcolm Johnson, the director of the National Funerals College council, believes that everybody has a fundamental right to have their life celebrated. ''Many people are just treated as a piece of disposal,'' he argues. ''Disposal is a term used in the funeral industry, but this is a term used in the most instrumental sense. Their burials are done administratively. We believe that the current rates of payment to local authorities are too low. We are also unhappy with the way they are contracted out. The whole process is not very publicly accountable and there isn't very much that the people in general know about it. And that's partly why it is Dickensian. The National Funerals College council exist to improve the quality of funerals by an advocacy of public education, debate and research.''

Professor Johnson believes these type of funerals are an unobserved activity on behalf of the public which the public pays, about which there is little or no discussion. It

is very much swept under the carpet. It can be the case that there is hardly anybody there at the burial. ''This is the reality. It is a very sad ending to a life, to have no human celebration or recognition of life. We would like to see the basic funeral available to everybody regardless of resources. That would involve a proper ceremony, a celebration of life, a proper coffin, headstone, and something which people who had their own resources would recognise as representing the cultural norm wherever people are. That might vary.''

To this end, the NFC published the Dead Citizens Charter (first published in 1996 and updated last year) which claims that funerals most often fail to provide comfort and an opportunity for remembrance when nothing is said about the life of the person who has just died. If the life of any dead person is to be respected, then the funeral practice needs to be relevant to them as individuals. The Charter criticises funeral services, particularly those involving people with little or no assets, as hypocritical, bureaucratic, dull, impersonal, and hurried. Furthermore, clergy do not have the time, especially at crematoria, to conduct a service in which the life of a dead person is remembered and celebrated in a meaningful way.

The Charter states that everyone preparing for death is entitled to the following rights: To exercise informed choice; to be confident that expressed wishes will be respected; to expect that survivors will be helped and supported in the future; to post-funeral care of graves and memorials. It also recommends that the Department of Social Security revises its range of benefits so as to fund, for people in financially deprived circumstances, a funeral at a level which ensures a basic and dignified standard of service, facilities, and disbursements.

''We don't prescribe a particular kind of organised funeral package. What we say is it ought to be respectably recognisable as the funeral of a fellow human being which might be like that of other people who were paying for it themselves. When someones life has ended, and there are no financial circumstances, there needs to be a cultural norm. The end of this person's life is worth as much as anybody elses, and it should be recognised in a proper dignified way, not cheapskate disposal.''

In his book, The Social Symbolism of Grief and Mourning, author and psychologist Roger Grainger writes that when somebody dies whose relatives cannot be traced, that when a few neighbours turn out to say goodbye to the old man whom they had never really liked anyway, that when the number of patients in the female psycho-geriatirc ward at the mental hospital is reduced by the death of one isolated old woman, these are the times when the funeral really counts, because this is what funerals are all about. The message of the funeral rite is particularly clear.

''We escort a dead person upon ther first stage of his journey,'' he says. ''We 'go with him to the riverside', thereby proclaiming in the action itself a common humanity, a common willingness to suffer on behalf of others and to share in the grief of the bereaved; a common vulnerability to the inherent dangers of living and dying, the sudden thrombosis and the slowly hardening artery, the powder-keg circumstances of our common mortality. We go for less tangible reasons, too. These are to do with a common dignity that cannot, must not, be removed, and demands acknowledgement of its birthright.''

Glasgow City Council has an obligation under Section 50(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948 to cremate or bury any person who has died or has been found dead in their area and for whom no other suitable arrangements are being made. For example, there being no next of kin, no funds, and family unwilling or unable to make arrangements. The cost of the funeral is #600, though, according to the Council, a cremation is the norm unless lair papers are produced and if the deceased's last wish was for burial. The Council provides one coffin, one hearse, an additional car if required. Any extras, such as flowers, are required to be met by family and friends.

''The state does make arrangements in a very minimalist way,'' says Brian Kelly, Director of Protective Services, Glasgow City Council. ''Lets be frank about it. You wouldn't expect it to be otherwise, but it has to be dignified and legal and properly done.'' When there are cases where there is a bank or building society account, insurance policies or monies due from the DSS, or cash, the Council offset these against the funeral cost of #600. In the case where there are no next of kin, the Prosecutor Fiscal's Office is informed and it will deal with excess monies.

It is precisely this accepted idea that ''you wouldn't expect it to be otherwise'', that the Rev David Lunan, is against. As minister at Renfield St Stevens Church, Glasgow, he is often requested by the police or the department of social work to preside over funerals with only himself and the undertaker in attendance. ''It's a fairly desolate experience. I suppose every death makes you think about the deep things. But this, in particular, the kind of meaninglessness of a life, or a death, no-one to mourn their passing, their life. I suppose part of what I'm seeking to do at the funeral is to offer some comfort to those who are missing this. There is a kind of emptiness, I suppose, a dark sadness.

''The expression 'pauper funeral' was used at my very first funeral at the Necropolis, in Glasgow. I think the undertaker said to me: 'this is going to be a pauper's, and you'll get two pounds from the council.' That was in 1969. They're still taking place.''

''Pauper funerals are something we have been trying to get away from for a long, long time,'' says Lucille Furie, Cemetery and Crematoria officer, at Glasgow City Council. ''Basically, all we expect is a normal funeral service, cremation or a burial. If it's a cremation it's straightforward. If it's a burial it's a hearse, a car and the basic coffin.''

The National Systems Act 1948 was repealed and replaced by the Public Health Control of Disease Act 1984. For someone who dies without any funds, for whom no funeral is actually arranged, the local authority would arrange for the disposal of the body. ''If it was a burial it would probably be a common grave,'' added Furie. ''Most graveyards at some time or another would have had common ground within. The only burial provision we have is the Linn Cemetery. That's where funerals of social work referrals would actually be. But we never call it a pauper's funeral, because that's not effectively what happens. They get a simple standard and respectful funeral.''

Yet at Linn there are no marked graves. Common grave funerals would be unmarked although, according to Furie: ''That's not to say that someone could come along at a later date and put up a memorial to include all the parties within that grave. There is no provision for gravestones within the money aside for funeral expense. No provision for any memorialisation. In many ways, that's considered a luxury, not considered an essential item.''

Apart from the Celtic cross erected by the Talbot Association for its men and women on their own plot, there is no common marker. There is no sense of remembrance. ''We don't refer to it as common ground. We refer to it as dressed ground, which just means that it's maintained. We really do try to get away from the common grave scenario, because the older generation still look at it with horror and contempt. They obviously have very bad memories of what went before. The only difference with common ground is that there tends to be no memorial.''

In Edinburgh, people who die without assets or kin are at least granted the dignity of a headstone to mark their death. The number of ''pauper deaths'' from January to December 1998, was 60 in total. According to Mike Drewry, director for Environmental and Consumer Services, Edinburgh District Council, that includes instances of next of kin who couldnt meet the cost involved. ''When it comes to the department, if the deceased has an estate, then the department will deal with the cremation or burial. And if there is an estate, the cost will be recovered from that. If there is no estate or if there is a next of kin, but they cannot afford the costs, then it will be recovered from the National Assistance Act Fund. If it's a cremation, then the ashes are buried in the Garden of Rememberance, in Edinburgh. If it's a burial, they are buried in Mortonhall cemetery, and there is a headstone with

the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death. If there's more than one body in the lair, the names will appear on the headstone.''

Dominic Maguire, president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, believes there is little point in the state having the extra expense of opening up a new grave each time a state funeral has to be held. He has buried dozens of people with just himself, the hearse, and the grave digger in attendance. ''It's all done with the utmost dignity and respect . . . These people are buried in what is tantamount to the public grave. They will be interred in the grave, but their is no exclusive right over who is buried in that grave. People who are wholly and completely unrelated, four or five of them might be in the same grave. They can't put a headstone on the grave, and the grave remains in the ownership of the local authority.

''I don't want to sound blase about this, but at the end of the day you are dead. And provided after you are dead you are accorded dignity and respect in the way your funeral is handled, then I really don't see any strong argument for separate burial. We are facing a shortage of ground situation and it also falls back on the local authority, so the public is paying for it, contributing in some way. I would say that there possibly should be some kind of memorial for those who lie in unmarked graves. A focal point.''

When someone dies at the Talbot, or if the Assciation hears that any one of its past clients has died, it doesn't need to worry about a lair, because the organisation own such such a large piece of land. John Douglas was attended by a handful of mourners - but very often the men or women could have 50 or 60 mourners. ''He wasn't as well-known amongst the men as some the others,'' explains Stevenson. ''But his burial was more dignified than most in a similair position.''

is very much swept under the carpet. It can be the case that there is hardly anybody there at the burial. ''This is the reality. It is a very sad ending to a life, to have no human celebration or recognition of life. We would like to see the basic funeral available to everybody regardless of resources. That would involve a proper ceremony, a celebration of life, a proper coffin, headstone, and something which people who had their own resources would recognise as representing the cultural norm wherever people are. That might vary.''

To this end, the NFC published the Dead Citizens Charter (first published in 1996 and updated last year) which claims that funerals most often fail to provide comfort and an opportunity for remembrance when nothing is said about the life of the person who has just died. If the life of any dead person is to be respected, then the funeral practice needs to be relevant to them as individuals. The Charter criticises funeral services, particularly those involving people with little or no assets, as hypocritical, bureaucratic, dull, impersonal, and hurried. Furthermore, clergy do not have the time, especially at crematoria, to conduct a service in which the life of a dead person is remembered and celebrated in a meaningful way.

The Charter states that everyone preparing for death is entitled to the following rights: To exercise informed choice; to be confident that expressed wishes will be respected; to expect that survivors will be helped and supported in the future; to post-funeral care of graves and memorials. It also recommends that the Department of Social Security revises its range of benefits so as to fund, for people in financially deprived circumstances, a funeral at a level which ensures a basic and dignified standard of service, facilities, and disbursements.

''We don't prescribe a particular kind of organised funeral package. What we say is it ought to be respectably recognisable as the funeral of a fellow human being which might be like that of other people who were paying for it themselves. When someones life has ended, and there are no financial circumstances, there needs to be a cultural norm. The end of this person's life is worth as much as anybody elses, and it should be recognised in a proper dignified way, not cheapskate disposal.''

In his book, The Social Symbolism of Grief and Mourning, author and psychologist Roger Grainger writes that when somebody dies whose relatives cannot be traced, that when a few neighbours turn out to say goodbye to the old man whom they had never really liked anyway, that when the number of patients in the female psycho-geriatirc ward at the mental hospital is reduced by the death of one isolated old woman, these are the times when the funeral really counts, because this is what funerals are all about. The message of the funeral rite is particularly clear.

''We escort a dead person upon ther first stage of his journey,'' he says. ''We 'go with him to the riverside', thereby proclaiming in the action itself a common humanity, a common willingness to suffer on behalf of others and to share in the grief of the bereaved; a common vulnerability to the inherent dangers of living and dying, the sudden thrombosis and the slowly hardening artery, the powder-keg circumstances of our common mortality. We go for less tangible reasons, too. These are to do with a common dignity that cannot, must not, be removed, and demands acknowledgement of its birthright.''

Glasgow City Council has an obligation under Section 50(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948 to cremate or bury any person who has died or has been found dead in their area and for whom no other suitable arrangements are being made. For example, there being no next of kin, no funds, and family unwilling or unable to make arrangements. The cost of the funeral is #600, though, according to the Council, a cremation is the norm unless lair papers are produced and if the deceased's last wish was for burial. The Council provides one coffin, one hearse, an additional car if required. Any extras, such as flowers, are required to be met by family and friends.

''The state does make arrangements in a very minimalist way,'' says Brian Kelly, Director of Protective Services, Glasgow City Council. ''Lets be frank about it. You wouldn't expect it to be otherwise, but it has to be dignified and legal and properly done.'' When there are cases where there is a bank or building society account, insurance policies or monies due from the DSS, or cash, the Council offset these against the funeral cost of #600. In the case where there are no next of kin, the Prosecutor Fiscal's Office is informed and it will deal with excess monies.

It is precisely this accepted idea that ''you wouldn't expect it to be otherwise'', that the Rev David Lunan, is against. As minister at Renfield St Stevens Church, Glasgow, he is often requested by the police or the department of social work to preside over funerals with only himself and the undertaker in attendance. ''It's a fairly desolate experience. I suppose every death makes you think about the deep things. But this, in particular, the kind of meaninglessness of a life, or a death, no-one to mourn their passing, their life. I suppose part of what I'm seeking to do at the funeral is to offer some comfort to those who are missing this. There is a kind of emptiness, I suppose, a dark sadness.

''The expression 'pauper funeral' was used at my very first funeral at the Necropolis, in Glasgow. I think the undertaker said to me: 'this is going to be a pauper's, and you'll get two pounds from the council.' That was in 1969. They're still taking place.''

''Pauper funerals are something we have been trying to get away from for a long, long time,'' says Lucille Furie, Cemetery and Crematoria officer, at Glasgow City Council. ''Basically, all we expect is a normal funeral service, cremation or a burial. If it's a cremation it's straightforward. If it's a burial it's a hearse, a car and the basic coffin.''

The National Systems Act 1948 was repealed and replaced by the Public Health Control of Disease Act 1984. For someone who dies without any funds, for whom no funeral is actually arranged, the local authority would arrange for the disposal of the body. ''If it was a burial it would probably be a common grave,'' added Furie. ''Most graveyards at some time or another would have had common ground within. The only burial provision we have is the Linn Cemetery. That's where funerals of social work referrals would actually be. But we never call it a pauper's funeral, because that's not effectively what happens. They get a simple standard and respectful funeral.''

Yet at Linn there are no marked graves. Common grave funerals would be unmarked although, according to Furie: ''That's not to say that someone could come along at a later date and put up a memorial to include all the parties within that grave. There is no provision for gravestones within the money aside for funeral expense. No provision for any memorialisation. In many ways, that's considered a luxury, not considered an essential item.''

Apart from the Celtic cross erected by the Talbot Association for its men and women on their own plot, there is no common marker. There is no sense of remembrance. ''We don't refer to it as common ground. We refer to it as dressed ground, which just means that it's maintained. We really do try to get away from the common grave scenario, because the older generation still look at it with horror and contempt. They obviously have very bad memories of what went before. The only difference with common ground is that there tends to be no memorial.''

In Edinburgh, people who die without assets or kin are at least granted the dignity of a headstone to mark their death. The number of ''pauper deaths'' from January to December 1998, was 60 in total. According to Mike Drewry, director for Environmental and Consumer Services, Edinburgh District Council, that includes instances of next of kin who couldnt meet the cost involved. ''When it comes to the department, if the deceased has an estate, then the department will deal with the cremation or burial. And if there is an estate, the cost will be recovered from that. If there is no estate or if there is a next of kin, but they cannot afford the costs, then it will be recovered from the National Assistance Act Fund. If it's a cremation, then the ashes are buried in the Garden of Rememberance, in Edinburgh. If it's a burial, they are buried in Mortonhall cemetery, and there is a headstone with

the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death. If there's more than one body in the lair, the names will appear on the headstone.''

Dominic Maguire, president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, believes there is little point in the state having the extra expense of opening up a new grave each time a state funeral has to be held. He has buried dozens of people with just himself, the hearse, and the grave digger in attendance. ''It's all done with the utmost dignity and respect . . . These people are buried in what is tantamount to the public grave. They will be interred in the grave, but their is no exclusive right over who is buried in that grave. People who are wholly and completely unrelated, four or five of them might be in the same grave. They can't put a headstone on the grave, and the grave remains in the ownership of the local authority.

''I don't want to sound blase about this, but at the end of the day you are dead. And provided after you are dead you are accorded dignity and respect in the way your funeral is handled, then I really don't see any strong argument for separate burial. We are facing a shortage of ground situation and it also falls back on the local authority, so the public is paying for it, contributing in some way. I would say that there possibly should be some kind of memorial for those who lie in unmarked graves. A focal point.''

When someone dies at the Talbot, or if the Assciation hears that any one of its past clients has died, it doesn't need to worry about a lair, because the organisation own such such a large piece of land. John Douglas was attended by a handful of mourners - but very often the men or women could have 50 or 60 mourners. ''He wasn't as well-known amongst the men as some the others,'' explains Stevenson. ''But his burial was more dignified than most in a similair position.''