Radio Review: 17 October

Sometimes, research overturns my preconceptions. It’s tempting to bend the facts to fit my mindset, but then what’s the point of doing the spadework in the first place?

In How To Dig A Grave, Cathy FitzGerald was advised by cemetery expert Dr Julie Rugg to discard romanticised, spiritual notions of gravedigging, fuelled by Shakespeare, Victorian literature and death, and view it as what it was: hard, practical work. Sadly, FitzGerald carried on viewing gravediggers as ethereal and gravedigging as mystic art, narrating in hushed tones over carefully-chosen folk music.

For support, Good Funeral Guide author Charles Cowling said trite things fruitily for ersatz profundity. ‘We’re going to put our loved person into this wet and surprisingly deep hole,’ he guffed. ‘It’s the great contrast, isn’t it? And the fact that it’s earth [ponderous pause]…’ I wanted to give up, but had to stick it out for the credits, to make sure it hadn’t been a spoof of a Radio 4 documentary. That said, I’d have missed Kilmarnock gravedigger Stevie (who with colleague Bobby supplied desperately-needed dark humour) undermining FitzGerald’s musings on burial versus cremation beautifully. ‘The main thing to me is, as long as I’m deid... Other than that, I could be in a bin bag out the back door.’

Curiously, among the projects on FitzGerald’s website is ‘In the Boneyard. Health & Safety has come to gravedigging. There’s a four-day course with tests on use of ladders and lifting technique. We attend.’ Presumably that became this. A shame, because that sounds more interesting.

Just give me half an hour of the Kilmarnock gravediggers, Radio 4, and put it out on a week night.

How To Dig A Grave, on iPlayer
Louis on Twitter: @LFBarfe or email: wireless@cheeseford.net