Putting the FUN in funerals!

[Carbomb]

I thought his name is Gareth?

[garynysmon]

56 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I agree Chest, but spare a thought for poor old Gary can't even get half a shandy after his Welsh Baptist send offs.

Methodist usually!

Would be livened up by the Impact Zone cage dancers wouldn’t they?

Edited January 24, 2024 by garynysmon

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

My apologies. There are just so many brands of Christianity one struggles to keep up. None of them appeal to me except possibly those ones who eat an advent calendar every 7 days. I'm assuming they stockpile in November each year and I'm not that good at planning so it's a no from me. 

[Just Some Guy]

33 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

 

Erm...can I just have The Man Who Sold The World -Nirvana version please?

You'll get Lulu and like it.

[Carbomb]

My mum's family's traditionally Methodist (mum's not religious at all, though). Wonder if it's a class thing to be Methodist if you're working class, and C of E if you're middle class? 

[Gus Mears]

29 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

My mum's family's traditionally Methodist (mum's not religious at all, though). Wonder if it's a class thing to be Methodist if you're working class, and C of E if you're middle class? 

Some truth in that. The old phrase "the Church of England is the Conservative Party at prayer" is pithy but not wholly innacurate. More overall nonconformism than just Methodism when it comes to matching with class though, think from recollection Methodism was associated a lot of the time with striving lower middle classes (at least in Wales).

Edited January 24, 2024 by Gus Mears

[garynysmon]

1 minute ago, Gus Mears said:

Some truth in that. The old phrase "the Church of England is the Conservative Party at prayer" is pithy but not wholly innacurate. More overall nonconformism than just Methodism when it comes to matching with class though, think from recollection Methodism was associated a lot of the time with striving lower middle classes (at least in Wales).

Yup. Also the fact that the mainly monoglot Welsh speaking congratation didn’t have a clue with the Church of England appointed clergy were banging on about, so Welsh language centred nonconformism became the majority religion. There are many more chapels than churches in Wales.

If Don West was at the pulpit they’d still be full…

 

[Keith Houchen]

They’re all proddy. 

[Chris B]

3 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

In that two hours everyone got pretty drunk, buying consoling brandies for his partner and drinking many toasts to his memory. When time came to take him to the crematorium the undertakers had to clear a considerable number of glasses off the coffin. 

Reminds me of a cracking line from the Steptoe and Son movie, where they're doing the same thing, with the glasses on the coffin.

"Well, that's a new experience."

"What is, Albert?"

"First time I ever had a drink on him!"

[cobra_gordo]

On 1/16/2024 at 2:55 PM, cobra_gordo said:

At my wife's nan's funeral we had the service at the local church but she was to be cremated elsewhere. After the service had ended we told everybody to go to the pub for the wake whilst the immediate family were to follow the hearse in a minibus to the crematorium and pay our respects in private, just a select few of us. Immediate family. Select few. Some woman that used to go in the chip shop that my wife's nan used to run in the 70's just decides to hop on the fucking minibus, waving to everybody stood outside the church like she's off on a school trip to Crich Tram Museum. The plan was for the deceased's kids, grandkids, their husbands/wives and her great grandkids to all put a rose on the coffin before she went through the curtain, only there's now one short because waving woman has grabbed one and is now doing an impassioned monologue to the casket. She may have waved her arms but I was doing a balancing act between consoling my wife and trying not to mutter "for fucks sake" too loudly to pay full attention to her. As we were leaving my wife's cousin took selfies with said rose-covered coffin for reason's I'll never understand. Proper angled Myspace pose too.

Had the news yesterday that Minibus Woman had passed away suddenly, which is a shame as it turns out that in the years since the funeral incident she'd done a lot of work for children's charities and ended up with an MBE because of it. A nice woman by all accounts who just happened to be a lunatic. The thought of paying tribute by climbing on to whatever transport her family provides at her funeral has crossed my mind already.

[BomberPat]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:54 PM, Gus Mears said:

Some truth in that. The old phrase "the Church of England is the Conservative Party at prayer" is pithy but not wholly innacurate. More overall nonconformism than just Methodism when it comes to matching with class though, think from recollection Methodism was associated a lot of the time with striving lower middle classes (at least in Wales).

the other old adage is that the Labour Party "owes more to Methodism than Marx"; Keir Hardie and a lot of early trade unionists and Labour activists were Methodists. 

[Carbomb]

The striation and intersection of religious demographics in this country is definitely a fascinating field to me, because it's so varied by geography as well as class. You have the obvious ones, like NI and Glasgow with the contrast between Protestants and Catholics, but it gets murkier all across the board when you start bringing in third or even fourth parties - for example, where do Methodists, Church of Scotland, and Presbyterians all fit around each other in the Scottish landscape? Or, in Wales where the Protestant/Catholic divide hasn't (I'm assuming) been as fraught throughout history, where do the Catholics tend to have structural/class presence, if any?

That's before you bring in the Jewish communities (although small, very concentrated in certain areas for obvious logistical reasons), and then the overspill from traditionally ethnically-based faiths like Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Tewahedo Orthodox Christianity.

[BomberPat]

there's the distinction between Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodism as well, the latter of which I believe is more prevalent in Wales. I should ask my brother about this, he's a historian for the Methodist Church, whereas I'm just having a reckon.

Edited February 6, 2024 by BomberPat

[Carbomb]

9 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

there's the distinction between Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodism as well, the latter of which I believe is more prevalent in Wales. I should ask my brother about this, he's a historian for the Methodist Church. 

That's interesting, as it's possibly answered a question that's bugged me for a while: Kenneth Williams did an interview (I think with Parkinson) in which he got all hufty at being referred to as a "Methodist", saying his family was "strict Wesleyan". As I understood it, the Wesley brothers adopted the term "Methodist" in response to it originally being used mockingly while they were alive, so it seems odd that there would have been that kind of schism so early on.

[King Coconut]

25 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

it seems odd that there would have been that kind of schism so early on.

Any religious group is a sneeze away from a schism at all times.