Legacy Matters
Secret Funeral for 'Eleanor Rigby' pensioner after public appeal for mourners.
There had been fears that no one would come to Olive Archer's funeral.
But yesterday a small chapel was filled with remembrance and fond feelings as the 83-year-old was laid to rest.
Miss Archer, who died on December 20, never married, had no children, and spent her last five years without a single visitor at the Kington St Michael care home in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
Amid concern that her funeral would be like that of the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby, when "nobody came," church minister Reverend Akasha Lonsdale launched an appeal for friends and family that was highlighted in the Daily Mail.
Dozens of friends, relatives and well-wishers came forward and 16 were chosen to be at the Swindon service.
With societies aging and fewer children, I wouldn't be surprised if more and more funeral mourners are paid.
Such is the case in Taiwan where wailers are for hire to mourn the dead.
Re-enacting grief-stricken daughters, among the most emotive elements of a traditional funeral, professional mourners offer themselves for T$2,000 ($60) to T$3,000 per half day of singing, crying and crawling on the ground.
The phenomenon, which appears to date back to ancient Greek times, is not unique to Taiwan, where mourners for hire emerged in the 1970s largely to give funerals the somber atmosphere that shows the appropriate respect to deceased elders.