The Ark

From its origins in the 17th century, the obituary has been a mirror of the values, the moral climate and religious fervour of the times.

Transcript

Rachael Kohn: So you think you deserve an obituary when you die? First, check your gender!

Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn and this is The Ark on ABC Radio National.

An American survey of obituaries in the 1990s showed 83% were of men. Now I don't address this sad fact with my guest today, who's Nigel Starck, but that's because there's so much in his wonderful book, Life After Death: the Art of the Obituary. Nigel is an Adelaide-based writer who simply loves the obit, and it seems we all do. It's a very popular part of the newspaper. Since its origins in the 17th century, and especially since Victorian times, its content has evolved.

Nigel Starck: In the early days of papers - papers remember then were written for people who could read, and not a lot of people could read - and so these were people who would sit in their clubs, gentlemen's clubs, or the coffee shops, the great coffee shops from Samuel Pepys' London, they had time to read at leisure the great thundering columns of Victorian literature. Long, long tombstones of columns in the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the overseas papers, they had space for this sort of thing, leisurely reading.

But the longest obituary ever written was the Times' obituary of Queen Victoria. It was 15,000 words.

Rachael Kohn: Well I'm glad you mentioned her because one of the characteristics of, it seems to me, the Victorian obituaries is that they were quite comfortable at conveying the most intimate and gruesome details of a person's passing.

Nigel Starck: The Victorians loved to celebrate death as much as they loved to write about life, and they were incredibly invasive.

The Duke of Richmond who contracted rabies and died in Canada, they day after day, would recite his horrific death dance, and they had the latest bulletin on his horrible condition. That, by today's standards, would be considered remarkably intrusive journalism, discussing some poor character's shooting of himself and the brains spattered on the ceiling. Even with Queen Victoria they had the death tableau reproduced in great detail, about how the old Queen was surrounded by her family; she asked for a glass of champagne for her favourite lap-dog to be brought to her. This intimate revelation from the death chamber all trotted out for the readers of the obituary.

Rachael Kohn: I guess they felt as if they were standing around her bed while they were reading it.

Nigel Starck: They certainly did. And that of course is the test of a good obituary, because if you can read an obituary, even if it's of someone you didn't know, but you should think, 'Now I do know them and by gosh I wish I'd known them when they were still alive'.

Rachael Kohn: Well I guess one of the most important things about last things about your last moments on earth, is to be reconciled with your family, reconciled with your God. Now that sort of line I suppose is missing in a lot of the obituaries these days, certainly the latter, one's relationship to God. When was it in favour?

Nigel Starck: It was at its very peak in the 19th century with the evangelical movement. And there are a number of examples of this, of obituaries which reflect the ars bene moriendi convention, the art of dying well. And there was a tremendous example in the book about a former editor, a former journalist of the Cork Examiner, and his obituary in the London Daily Telegraph of the day, 1872, says that 'fortified by the rites of that church of which he was so eloquent and earnest a defender, he departed this life at 8 o'clock on Friday evening, in the presence of his wife and daughter, at the age of 57 years.' And it talks about the fact that his last hours were 'without pain, and his death in truth, was a Christian euthanasy'.

Rachael Kohn: Presumably reading those accounts were comparable to reading lives of the saints.

Nigel Starck: Yes, and I think it gave people of that time a tremendous degree of comfort, because disease was so common. Again in my book I talk about Archbishop Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, late 19th century, and he and his wife lost their five daughters to disease in a very short period of time, cholera killed them. And yet he practiced the art of dying well, and his obituary talks about the fact that on his deathbed 'he declared that he was at peace and he would meet his wife and his family again.'

Rachael Kohn: One of the trends that I can see discernible in your study of obituaries, is that which moves towards looking at the life lived. Why do you think that transition was made?

Nigel Starck: The transition was made because of materialism and realism and new style in newspapers. And it's now considered sound practice from an editorial point of view to let the news pages report the fact of death.

So in recent times, you would have the fact that Steve Irwin was killed by a barb from a stingray. The obituary is generally positioned further back in the paper, it's obvious it's about death by the heading on the page. So they'll talk about the fact of life, and they just have the confrontation with the stingray as one little line towards the end. They will try to capture what it was like to confront that person in life, and will try to represent the character of that person as well.

So again, it provides a piece of instant biography, a character study of that person and I think it therefore assumes an important historical role. It provides us with an historical record of our life and times. I'd just like to add there, that I think the obituaries also, if you look back over the centuries at them, they provide us with a very clear indication of prevailing social mores, and that's an important factor too.

Rachael Kohn: Now if you're writing an epitaph, you can exclude the love affairs, the mistresses, the crimes committed. But should editors operate with that kind of selectivity?

Nigel Starck: I think there's a feeling that you mustn't be unfair after death and kick someone when they're down, and dead. Nevertheless, I come back to my point about it's a review. So you review the work on earth, you review the life of the person.

The eulogy tends to be highly subjective; the epitaph can be pointed yet obviously it's quite brief. The obituary is a bigger review. One shouldn't be too swayed by personal feeling, and of course this is where I'm extremely suspicious of many paid death announcements, and in the North American context, the paid obituary, because they often contain inaccuracies and frankly, lies. The good obituarist will always check the facts so that the historical record is unspotted.

Rachael Kohn: Well with Steve Irwin's death recently, Germaine Greer's commentary on him certainly caused a stir because it did seem as if she was kicking a great man when he was down, as it were.

Nigel Starck: I didn't see that as a problem. I watched her interview, I thought she presented a reasoned, academic argument. I saw nothing whatsoever offensive about her having said that, just because he was dead. She could well have said it while he was still alive, people would not have complained then; it's an opinion, it's legitimate. The obituary pages must contain candid views, because otherwise they themselves become slanted, and our history is skewed unnecessarily.

Rachael Kohn: Well one of the most amusing solutions to an ethical problem in the obituary, which is perhaps uniquely British is that genius of understatement, and you've got a few examples in your book, and it does make hilarious copy when you know what it's really referring to.

Nigel Starck: May I quote a couple?

Rachael Kohn: Please do.

Nigel Starck: There was the 1960s pop-singing icon, Nico, and she died and her death was appraised by the Daily Telegraph in London, in these words. And remember she'd been a pretty wild woman in her day.

'She gave up heroin for bicycling, which was to turn out more dangerous amusement. She died when she fell off a bicycle while on holiday.'

And then there was Danisa, Lady Newborough, 'who had many admirers in her life: Mussolini, Hitler, the Kings of Spain and Bulgaria, and a wealthy sheikh who gave her 500 sheep.'

Rachael Kohn: She kept interesting company. Well one of the questions I suppose that does emerge is whether obituaries should be spent on the villains and criminals in our society.

Nigel Starck: You raise a most valid point. But if we are such a multi-faceted society, why shouldn't obituaries reflect that? There's been a lot of controversy about it. Myra Hindley, murderess of the Yorkshire moors. She got the lead obituary in the Guardian in London, and this caused an enormous outcry. It was said that the obituary page should be the preserve of people who had contributed to life, rather than undermining it. But again, the editor defended that decision by saying 'We are supposed to represent on our page, all those people who have affected the way we live today. She did, because as a result of her imprisonment, there was a precedent set that someone could actually serve life and never be released, it was important to write about it.' And I must say I defend that decision.

Rachael Kohn: So the historical record is certainly as important as being a place where you appreciate the great people of society?

Nigel Starck: Well I think as well as appreciating, you can offer criticism, and again, it's the review. The confectionary tycoon, Kenneth Mars, the man behind Mars Bars, when he died, one of his obituaries described him as 'a tyrant and a foul-mouthed bully'. So let it all come out.

Rachael Kohn: Well Professor Jay Black, who you mention quite a lot in your book, Life After Death, is a champion of the ethically responsible obituary. What do you think about his views on what is tasteful, fair and permissible, and especially how would you relate that to the obit of the late Bruce Juddery, journalist of the Canberra Times?

Nigel Starck: Bruce Juddery's obituary was written by Jack Waterford, now Editor-at-large at the Canberra Times, and at the time Jack, who'd known Bruce Juddery for 30 years, talked about the fact that alcohol had a devastating effect on Bruce's life, that everything he turned to outside mainstream journalism was a complete disaster. He was argumentative, he alienated everybody, and he smoked stinking, cheap cigars. He really let it rip. But the family, the estranged former wife of the now-dead Bruce Juddery, read that piece, rang up Jack Waterford the writer, and said, 'Would you please come and deliver the eulogy, because that's exactly how he was.'

Rachael Kohn: Well do you think that taste and fairness should prevail in the obituary?

Nigel Starck: Of course. I quite agree. Yes, it's all very well for me to say you must be candid, you must be objective, you must write a review. I think there are some things that are just too intrusive, and too unpleasant and unnecessary. A little example, and this is the one that Professor Jay Black is concerned about.

There's a football coach, a famous football coach in American College Football history, Charley Pell. Charley had been sacked from his job because of illegal player payments, and he was a broken man after that. Now when he died some years later of cancer, he died in 2001, the New York Times in the obituary talked about his sacking, about his failed business ventures, about his depression, and his attempted suicide by asphyxiation.

I just thought, Do we need that detail? I think it would be more tasteful to have said his business ventures were bad, he became depressed, to the extent that he even made one attempt on his own life. I think if you put it in those sorts of words, I was taxed by that. I didn't like it, I interviewed the obituaries editor of the New York Times about it, a fine man, but he said, 'We deal in facts, that was the fact, that's what we're going to have.' But I have found that in American journalism, there is this harder line with that sort of thing, the fact of life, whereas in Australian and British journalism, there is much less intrusion of that type.

Rachael Kohn: Is the obituary making a comeback?

Nigel Starck: The obituary has made an amazing comeback since the mid-1980s, to the extent now that the leading London newspapers, the quality papers, have at least one, sometimes two pages a day. The Times has two pages a day and so does the Guardian. In Australia's it's had an astonishing transformation; the revival since 1993. We now have eight newspapers, eight major newspapers in Australia with a dedicated obituaries page. So it's the big thing in contemporary journalism.

Rachael Kohn: Why do you think that?

Nigel Starck: Because people I feel want to read something more reflective in newspapers, which present newspapers in a different light from online news. You go to the internet for instant hits. You go to your paper, your obituary pages, (and to Radio National) for more relaxed, broader, intelligent information.

Rachael Kohn: Well I have to say I love reading about the eccentrics and you have quite a few in your book.

Nigel Starck: Eccentric lives, when captured just show us that life is incredibly rich, it is just wonderful. Earl Russell, son of Bertrand Russell, who would crochet his own clothes out of string, and he made eccentric speeches in the House of Lords, back in the '70s. He made a speech telling their Lordships that 'Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter were actually the same person'.

Rachael Kohn: Glad we sorted that out.

Nigel Starck teaches Obituary Composition at the University of South Australia. His book is Life After Death. Go to our website for details.

Next week, an architect tells us why he's visited a sacred temple in Tamil Nadhu, India, for more than 20 years. That's on The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

THEME

Guests

Nigel Starck
is a journalist and author. A former South-East Asian correspondent for the ABC, he now teaches obituary composition in his courses at the University of South Australia, where he is a senior lecturer in creative writing.

Publications

Title: Life After Death: The Art of the Obituary
Author: Nigel Starck
Publisher: MUP, 2006

Presenter

Rachael Kohn

Producer

Geoff Wood and Rachael Kohn