In days gone by, a corpse would be taken to the front room and displayed in a coffin for people to pay their last respects and show sympathy to the family. But life has changed a lot since then and so too has the way society deals with death.
This week's O Flaen dy Lygaid takes a look at ordinary people working in the funeral business. It’s an ‘unseen’ world to a certain extent, where most of the work is done in the background, behind-the-scenes.
The programme visits Lampeter where Gwilym Price and his family run one of the biggest funeral companies in West Wales. This is a real family business with Gwilym, his son, daughter and daughter-in-law working for the company.
With fewer people going to church or chapel these days, the company has responded to the call for secular services and has a purpose-built building to this end.
There has also been an increase in the number of people looking for an alternative to the traditional funeral and the programme visits Gwarchodfa Boduan Sanctuary Wood in Pen Llyn which offers a natural burial in woodland.
“I think it fits in with the way I live,” says Kelvin Jones who has come to see the location. “There’s nothing religious about me and I don’t want a chapel or a big ceremony. I believe there is a circle of life and I have faith in that. I feel that if my body is buried here, I’ll go back to nature in a natural way and there’ll be nothing here in a hundred years...”
The programme will also take a look at the task of embalming the body, the work of the crematoriums, stone masons and grave diggers, revealing the everyday life of an often hidden world.
© 2008 S4C
O Gymru / Made in Wales