Tea at Four - What happens to our bodies after we die, wildest burial outfits and paranormal happenings in the morgue: chats with a mortician
Episode Date: October 17, 2024TRIGGER WARNING - This episode includes discussion of death that some people may find distressing. This week, Lauren and Billy are joined by a mortician, Hayleigh, who shares with us what it's like ...to work with the dead. She answers all of our morbid curiosities including how they seal up our mouths, what a ’skin slip’ is and where our organs actually end up going… Billy discusses his dream funeral that lives rent-free in his head, and Hayleigh shares some requests from clients to be buried in wild outfits. We learn about everything from the embalming process to if you can actually fake tan a corpse… If you have any dilemmas you’d like to share with us, please let us know at teaatfour@junglecreations.com
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Just a trigger warning, this episode will contain references of death which some viewers might find distressing.
On today's episode, we talk all things death.
What happens to your bodies when we die?
Can we be buried with a layer of Molly Mae filter fake tan on?
Do you still get an erection?
We debunk all your morbid curiosities.
Hi guys, welcome back to T4, I'm Lauren.
And I'm Billy.
And this is the podcast where we talk all things that normally stay in the group chat.
So today we are joined by an incredibly special guest. Here we have Hayley.
Welcome, welcome.
Welcome and you are also known as the mortuary tech on TikTok, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so just for some context, I have an infinite amount of questions about you and your job.
Okay.
As someone that is infinitely scared of death.
I just like spooky season.
I'm really like spooky season.
So we would, I guess, why don't we start with you explaining what your job is as a mortician
and what that entails.
So I basically prepare the deceased for their loved ones to be able to say
goodbye to them so that can be embalming makeup hair and recreate recreational work on their face
if they've had trauma injuries so my job is basically making sure they look presentable
for their families to say goodbye and what is embalming like what is we remove your blood from
your cartoid artery nice little juicy artery
right there we pump that out of you put arterial fluid in and hope to give you more of like a
normal color because within death you will go different colors you can go yellow orange and
black and purple quite quickly in some cases so we want to get rid of that pump you with arterial
fluid and then we make you up during that process oh my god and like
how long from like you're dead and then going the different color um depends on the situation
really if you're outdoors not long if you're indoors and you've got the heating on and you're
sat up a lot of elderly people believe it or not pass away on the toilet they really do or sat in their
armchair and you can go quite quickly you're talking maybe 48 hours you'll see heavy discoloration
what is it that make what blood pooling is the liberty so it's basically all your blood just
pulling up your artery swelling because it's blood's clotting and thickening and that gives
you the different color this is wild just for some like random context my my nan
when she was younger she was 14 and preparing dead bodies at the local hospital and like the
things that she would describe as obviously stuck with her for life like the sounds the the look of
a dead the releasing of gas yeah like me hearing a 14 year old man being able to deal with that is mental i guess
what on earth made you interested in this profession um if i'm being honest it was the
when my father passed away i lost my father and sadly a baby very close together and when i saw
the invoice for looking after my father i was fuming because i was like what are they doing
because there was care of the deceased on there and I remember being so angry about that so I only got the job to try
to prove myself right that actually is a money making profiting off a death and I was humbled
real quick what came after that like did you have to go into any training um so I stayed as a funeral
service operator for a little bit and then I was lucky to actually get on a course quite quickly.
And with the help of COVID as well, they were fast tracking people left, right and center.
Oh my God.
And that's how I've become what I'm doing now.
So it was quite a fast time.
But yeah, I was an FSO for two and a half years before that.
You talk about embalming.
Yeah.
Has anyone ever inquired?
Yeah, sometimes they do if sadly people seem to think when you're embalmed that is going to be
a miracle worker and they're going to look peaceful and as they were that's not always the
case you can embalm somebody and within two three hours they're already sweating it out
yeah you can and that's the thing you can't ever sort of guarantee
it's going to work so if you've got a family who's upset about that rightly so well how long
have they been embalming have they embalmed before blah blah blah and if you haven't got
the qualification you have to be honest and say i can embalm but no i don't have the qualification
to embalm and that's never happened to you because you're fully qualified. I'm fully qualified.
What was it like the first time, you know, you've got all your qualifications and, you know, first day on the job.
What's going through your mind at that point?
To be honest with you, because I was assisting with embalming quite a while anyway,
I think the first one I did solo was a man and he was a straightforward case.
So there was no having to open him up, remove everything.
It was quite nice. So I was quite lucky in that respect but again bodies will surprise you yeah
you can think what's going to be a nice standard case take 45 minutes to an hour no they can
surprise you quite quickly like what like they could yeah they can purge out in front of you
so uh basically bodily fluids up and down and down yeah and when i said what's that
horrendous mucus and bowel movements urine everything escaping if you roll them and all
of a sudden their mouth drops open and they go it's yeah so well
oh my gosh and does that like is there a certain age where that happens more often
i've got such bad embarrassment and self-awareness that i hate the thought of just like doing that
in front of you i think the longer you are sadly the longer you're dead the more common it's going
to be if you can get in quite quickly after death to be seen to and
cared for chances are that's going not going to happen but if you've been say sadly waiting for
a post-mortem you've been in a mortuary three four weeks yeah things happen quite quickly and
this really weird question i imagine that absolutely stinks yeah what happens like when
you go home like oh my car reeks hardly anyone goes in
my car my car reeks badly and also you can have a shower at work which you do but you can still
smell it it's yeah so if they haven't done the coming out both ends thing generally what does
a dead body smell like the only way i can describe it is imagine leaving a raw piece of
chicken on a radiator for about four hours on full heat that horrible gone off is it warm in there
well the more she knows freezing oh okay but that you know when chicken goes off and you can
you go oh that smell that's the only thing i can liken it to the only time i've ever seen a dead body is when my nan passed away and i always thought it was weird but like she passed away at my aunt's house because
she was like living there during like the last months of her life and she passed away in the
night and my aunt was there but then they kept the body in the living room for hours like we
like drove down like there was nothing they weren't doing anything and that was just so
bizarre and i think she started like farting yeah release another gas yeah that happens
does it sound like a fart yeah um more of like a bubbly sound to it i'm trying to
be professional there but yeah they can let them go yeah no i've got embarrassment i got
embarrassment after life so can i ask from like a a personal standpoint obviously this is a very
professional line of work but if you look at death in like maybe a spiritual way like do you believe
in afterlife i do i do i want i want to believe that once you're gone you go elsewhere i don't want to believe
that's the end of it yeah um but like i said i am genuinely terrified of dying myself it's because
of that unknown right and when i pass away i don't want anything being done to me leave me alone put
me in the coffin seal me and get me gone so you don't want to be in no no i do not know no well that's reassuring i know i don't want that thank you oh my gosh does uh has anyone you know asked in advance
like for you to embalm them my friend yeah so her grandmother was on end-of-life palliative care
and her grandmother made it quite clear no one else is touching me except for Hayley and that was really really difficult for me
um it's not often I cry when I'm doing that but because I knew her and I felt pressure in a way
because my friend and everything yeah it was I suppose yeah like to them it probably felt like
an honor but actually it's quite for me I was just if I get one thing wrong if I just get one
thing wrong if something goes wrong or if sadly you know it's too to the point where i can't embalm what am i
going to do thankfully it did go as well as it should have gone yeah so um what does a day-to-day
look like for you like and how how many bodies are you working with um so we can do anything
between four and six a day
um that don't sound a lot but if you think about if they're all having embalming done and they're
all being dressed in makeup that's quite a lot um between a team of four it's not oh there's
yeah not really so a good day would be you start your shift you get your little hand over you go
in you make sure all the names are on the board to the fridge we call them body stores but i'll call them a fridge here and you make sure
that they tally up with what's in the register then you get who's coming in tomorrow family's
coming in if any of them need to be coffined up that can be done if any of them sadly need to go
off to post-mortem you leave them where they are because they're coroners also we do do visits up
to 10 o'clock
at night so if any family needs to be prepped you would make sure that's done first so that
the family come in there's no waiting around they can go and view their loved one and then after
that then we get all our embalming supplies ready and then we prep up and that's a good day
so like embalming is the actual like removing of the blood yeah
hygienically cleaning yeah and so when what do you do after you've removed the blood we fill them
i've got some stuff here we fill them with arterial oh my god so mixed with water it's arterial fluid
and that's what's going to replace the blood and that's what gives that normal color looking in
your skin and again you know mixed with water to the right weight and height of the person that's what gives that normal colour looking in your skin and again you know mixed with water
to the right weight and height of the person that's what i was gonna ask because yeah people
can get it wrong and then it's not repairable that is barely gonna fill my belly up yeah i reckon a
bottle and a half a bottle and a half i think don't take the order just yet oh my god and what this this
the word is not inflates i can't think what the word is it just replaces your blood this replaces
you to your normal but it's diluted with water is that right and then yeah it's a nice big jug
of water i think it looks like mouthwash i wouldn't drink it i really wouldn't advise you
do that reminds me of that pink medicine i used to have as a child oh yes the um antibiotic type thing yes so once you've embalmed someone yeah what's
like the next step well it's you know it depends on how big the person is you can be pumping and
the machine does it all for you so it's not like you have to make sure that everything's tied and
ready and it's still flowing you can start with a hair wash then or with fixing the hair yeah we do i mean i can do
acrylics eyelashes eyebrows yeah why would you want your teeth on show when you're dead that'd
be terrifying i was gonna say i've never had that one before. I think I would be like, oh no. Well, interestingly, you said tied.
So what does that mean?
So we clip your artery to keep the flow going through.
Right.
It's about that long, the injector.
It's about that long.
So we need to make sure that it's going through at a nice, fast pace.
We massage your hands so you can feel it flowing through your hands.
Don't really need to do it with the feet.
Some people do, but unless their feet's going to be on show, don't really need to do that with the feet some people do but unless their feet's going to be on show don't really need to do that just keep you circulating behind
the ears your forehead cheeks just to make sure that there's no blockage because sadly although
we are taking the blood out if there's some thick clots it might need an extra bit of a
flow and the machine will let you know that's happening when you get a bit of a back back pull right and then in terms
of our eyes our mouth our eyes yep we can do that but it don't sit right oh no you look like a drum
stick it won't sit right i'm afraid it's not moisture in the skin it just sits yeah even
with a mousse like if you do a bit of a mousse i've been wearing fake since i was 15 maybe i
don't want to be embalmed and i want to have a
closed coffin that's what yeah that's what i'm going with yeah i know it sounds silly but what
like what is the purpose of embalming is it so people can see you or is it it's meant to preserve
you so your loved ones can see you so okay it's not standard it does not have to be done a lot
of people seem to think that embalming has to be done when you pass away no it's not standard it does not have to be done a lot of people seem to think that embalming
has to be done when you pass away no it's a choice right it's an absolute choice it's recommended if
you're not looking presentable and that's the only easiest way i can say it you can get some
deceased come in and you think they don't need embalming they just need their facial
set eyes closed mouth closed fine they'll be okay some you look at and you just say
they're going to need a little bit of help here so like on the like that element what's a bad day
like what's one of the words like not i don't want to you don't have to talk about specifics but like
um anything to do with little angel babies so when we come in um we have a group whatsapp so
we don't put anything other than a little angel emoji to say that we've got an infant in we go on the board and then there's only two of us who handle infants myself included
and the other lady and that's just a thing that we have been specifically trained to do and that's
really hard because it does it sets a tone for the whole shift then naturally then having to speak to
the parents to see if the parents want to assist that's daunting because you know there's nothing nice about that there's nothing nice suicide
sadly as well if people have taken their own life and their families were you know not aware of any
wrongdoing or anything going wrong they come in and you can hear them begging them why like why
didn't you speak and And that's really difficult.
And another one is sadly people who walk in front of trains
because there's nothing much left.
That's horrendous.
And having to try to weigh the coffin down,
we use little sandbags,
but you have to have some sort of weight in the coffin with them.
Do you get much support?
Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I'm really lucky.
I have a fantastic team around me my guys and girls are
absolutely great and there there is support but if I'm honest with you if you go if you're in this
job you have to be prepared to see some horrendous things and I know for a fact I've not seen
everything yet and I think anyone who's in this profession who says I've seen everything you
really haven't because you do not know what's coming in that door and I think you need to always just be prepared
that life is so incredibly precious I get to go home sadly not sadly but to my babies but somebody
hasn't and that's what I take away from that like I've I'm lucky that I'm still here and this person
felt they couldn't be that will play on you for quite about you know a week or two yeah definitely you said um the the the family friend you had like
a personal connect connection to made you quite emotional yeah do you found do you find generally
that you get a little bit like worked up with any cases or um only with angel little angels
little babies um I always call them angel babies because that's what they are yeah the younger the gestation my heart breaks because obviously i've had personal
losses myself so it's hard not to remember your own you do but for me it's you should never have
to see a little baby in a mortuary let alone being placed into a coffin by its parents yeah that and
that stays with you i can remember every single little angel i've worked on and it's yeah it's cruel definitely cruel i guess like obviously
there's a lot to unpack there but like you know you say you go home and how do you take your mind
off of it how do you kind of like my horse your horses my horse if i've had a really bad day um
my family know and first thing they'll be go get
your ride and go and i'm like thank you literally that's what i do um it's yeah they know if i sort
of send a message and say look just give me half hour an hour they'll know otherwise i'm normally
okay yeah is it uh like do you know many other people like in your friend group that have these
this kind of profession because I know for certain I don't know anyone that's taken on this kind of
job yeah one of my friends who I've met through work um yeah I guess it's nice having someone to
speak to about that kind of thing because definitely speak and then relate like it's such a
extraordinary job which I don't think many people would feel confident
going into like i say being scared of death myself like it's pretty impressive oh my god i'm terrified
of death yeah look genuinely i'm scared i it's my one of my biggest fears so yeah has why is that
has it made you more scared since working here since working I can see how quickly
life can be taken away from you and it could be an accident it could just be not listening to your
own body and it's so important that we do appreciate life and now because I'm a mum as
well I've got four children I don't want to be in a coffin with them looking over me at all I
I know I will at some point but
yeah the thought of leaving my babies behind and them not having me that's enough for me to go no
yeah don't want that can you see yourself doing this job forever then if it's something
oh that's good yeah that's powerful well this maybe again maybe something quite personal but
it's a job that I can't imagine many people would
want to do what is the general pay grade for someone that looks after dead bodies i mean
it's comfortable is what i'm going to say yeah you don't have to it's comfortable but you have to
be realistic um in the sense of how many you can do a week some people will sign themselves up to do
20 30 a week and that's a rush job to get things done and things can go wrong yeah so i always
you're never going to get rich off of it but it's comfortable that's what i would say yeah it is
like the idea of like going to the pub with my friends and sitting down and me talking
about oh i did a video today and then sit next to you talking about like you know what you do
really matters it's kind of like puts a perspective on things i generally am very passionate about my
job um more so because people don't know they have rights and that's the most concerning thing
for me is people seem to think that when your loved one goes to a funeral home you have to do exactly what they say no no this is your family member still
this is your loved one if you don't want them embalmed they do not have to be embalmed you do
not need all the hidden extras that come with it and that's why i use my tiktok to highlight this
this is your time of grief but stand stand your ground if you feel that actually no my mum or my
dad or so and so didn't want this wouldn't have wanted that say that definitely in terms of
obviously paying homage in the best way possible to how a person looked when they were alive what
kind of resources do you use like photos videos photos are fantastic yeah like my makeup is literally from super drug really yeah
oh my god do you get like weird like requests because i yes there's one that comes to mind
and i'll never forget him and his family allowed me to do a tiktok about him as well because oh
it was different i thought um the funeral director i thought he was taking the mickey out of me
because he said,
you've got a gentleman in,
he wants his nails done,
he wants his eyebrows done,
but extravagantly.
And I was like,
oh, okay, that's fine.
And he wants to wear this.
What was it?
It was a fishnet stocking dress.
Slay.
That is a full...
Well, I obviously looked and questioned this.
And I said,
people are coming to see him, right? And they had n nipple tassels little star nipple tassels and i remember ringing up because i
genuinely believed that graham won't mind me naming him the graham the funeral director
he was like no no this is legit and i went yeah let me ring his family just to make sure
because if he said no no no i would have known be my guest and i did and they went no that's that's what he wanted
was it something that he he planned he planned his funeral he knew he was going to die for about a
year and a half wow and that's what he wanted and that's and i yeah i love that though yeah i love
that like i mean more in the sense that like i don't think it's my personal taste but i love that though yeah i love that like i mean more in the sense that like i don't think
it's my personal taste but i love that you allow someone to go out the way that they want to
down to like you know their their choices i scratched my head a lot during that one that
was for sure it was just sort of trying to get things right and cover things up like right yeah
are there so with that are there
any no-goes when someone puts to you this is what i'm going to be wearing this is how i want to be
presented um i mean that one i thought would have been because it was quite you know bearing all
shall i say but we worked around that but no i've never the worst thing and i forgive me ladies on
this is when the elderly want to be buried in their wedding dresses oh why is that it takes hours it takes hours and our last thing i want to do is have to make an
incision up a wedding dress to get it around absolutely but a lot of you know women want to
go out in their wedding dress absolutely fine is this a common thing yeah yeah yeah as in say if
they passed away when they're elderly
and it's something that they wore when they were 20.
Do that six, seven times a year, if not a bit more.
Is that just with the elderly?
No.
No.
Not necessarily, no.
I couldn't think of anything more uncomfortable.
Well, yes.
Than a big old tulle dress.
That's the thing.
You have to think of how narrow a coffin is we have to tuck
said dress under but keep it as floaty as we can that comes to complications and yeah that's a lot
of rolling and maneuvering and i always say less is more the less we handle the deceased the better
they're still a person they're meant to be at rest right but sadly when it comes to dressing
you are rotating them quite a bit is there anything like in terms of cremation is there anything you can't be worn um there's
certain types of shoes that can't go in um i think most trainers are now being accepted in some areas
i think i'm not 100 sure things with batteries no so if you've got like obviously a pacemaker
things like that have to come out if you were got like obviously a pacemaker things like that have
to come out if you were very handy on a game boy or your phone or something that's not allowed in
but i've never been told i can't have certain things to go in no people will be embalmed and
then cremated yeah it's just so you can see the body and it actually speeds up the cremation
process as well it's flammable, hey. Oh.
Good to know.
Good to know.
Sorry about that.
What would you want to wear?
I was about to ask you that.
What would I like to... Had you given it much thought about...
Stick me in my pyjamas and fluffy socks and seal the lid on me.
That's it.
Yeah.
What would you wear?
Not a wedding dress.
No.
I think I'd like to go out in like really sexy black tux, black sunglasses,
brat in life and death.
Yeah.
We wouldn't put your hands like that.
Oh, that's just in the film.
It's like what you'd want.
Oh, okay.
Just like that.
Billy's crossing his hands.
We'd have to tape you down a little bit.
Yeah.
Are people ever holding things?
Yeah.
Do you ever?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We get people holding things.
I don't know what I'd want to wear
and I don't like to think about it,
to be honest.
I really, truly hate any thought of
after I'm going to live forever.
I always think about my funeral,
like on a daily basis.
It's my Roman Empire.
Okay.
Yeah.
We don't like that.
No.
We just think about like...
I don't think that's a normal thing.
I think about food too.
I like thinking about living really next holiday maybe
or something like that
you know you want the flowers to be right
you want the right people
certain people don't want to come
certain people should be there
and if they're not there then I'll get a ghosting
would you want to meet the person
that was going to
embalm you and prepare your body for the afterlife?
I don't think so.
Really?
Maybe.
I hadn't thought about that.
Well, if you're thinking about the rest of it.
I'm thinking about the nice decorations, the music, the party.
Yeah.
This changes all the time.
I think I'd like to be cremated to Crazy in Love by Beyonce
oh cremated
yeah I like that
is there ever any music playing
yeah we have the radio on or Spotify on
nice
any songs that are like banned from playing
yeah
some funeral directors get a little bit iffy
but Michael Jackson Thriller comes on no we like that that's a good one we like that get a little bit iffy but michael jackson thriller comes on
have a little shimmy it's all right there was actually a myth that when
when you embalm a person do people ever sit up they do not sit up oh do they do anything weird
or is it like okay so just apart from that what's the weirdest turn their insides out over you now and then but apart from that
they're pretty still and they're good company yeah oh did you speak to them yeah always yeah
i like that yeah i like the thought of that yeah like someone's not just poking me about
no we always say sorry i always put a flannel over their face so they can't see me do it because
that's my worst thing like even though their eyes are probably still open at that point and they can't see but
for me i just think cover their just cover their face and i always apologize and then we just talk
about the day family coming in things like that if we're having to turn them like really sorry
quick bump so yeah we do speak to them yeah did you do you say the eyes are open or they're shut more times they're
open yeah nine times out of ten your eyes will be partially opened or fully opened upon dying
really yeah so like what about anything creepy does like is there any i don't know being around
death that much and i used to watch a lot of supernatural things my mind don't believe the tv
don't believe it are you do you believe in like paranormal yeah you do
yeah i think creepy ever happened um i never believed in ghost believer or not until i moved
into my last house that's what changed me in the mortuary i've never had anything spooky
but in one of the viewing rooms which is in um a funeral home in amesbury yeah that's a little bit
bizarre in there that's quite odd and I again
thought people were winding you up but when the family come out and sort of say look that's just
fallen off the table we were nowhere near it what's going on just it's fine don't worry like
it's just probably rolled off there's no way it could have rolled off but yeah the lights will
turn on and off on their own I've got four or five TikTok videos of that as well really yeah
on and off on their own i've got four or five tiktok videos of that as well really yeah and when you're kind of preparing a body do you ever feel like certain you don't yourself but it's the
family the families feel it yeah wow and just a side note where does the blood go
wow so some places will have like a really big container then you just stick it down a septic
sink or if you're lucky enough to have enough space to get the body is close to a septic sink you can filter out that
way and that just goes down the drain yeah oh wow i don't know what i'd want to do with my blood
i don't have a choice it's not usable it's not usable that's what i was gonna say
that's a shame well that's creepy about the the supernatural
stuff does anyone else you know has anything happened to them like yeah my son oh really
yeah he terrifies me generally your son does yeah do you think he just knows too much or is there
no i just think he's either got a very wild imagination or he's probably going to be in
the papers at some point in the next few years so he he's always had like an invisible friend and then it stopped happy days but he will go
into any room and he'll be like there's a man stood there you're right kid like yeah just give
me that juice a minute make sure it's not like mummy juice he's been drinking that yeah but no
he's very he can walk through anywhere and you just be like there's a
woman over there and you're just looking going it's a bush mate like keep walking he's not done
that for a while touch wood but yeah and in our in the old house yeah that was like i said that
was really bizarre and that happened from day dot things were happening even like me and luke we
were just there going what was that and my cat would go mental as well sit on the
stairs hissing and spitting at something there was nothing there in terms of like dealing with
families as well like how is it just through like experience and that over the years you're growing
how to know how to deal with them you let no one person's the same yeah and you can get some
families who grieve in a way where they're actually quite
laughy and jokey quite talkative and it's lovely it's really nice some are silent and some are
obviously very visibly upset some can take their frustration out on you naturally understandable
yeah especially if we have to say sadly a closed coffin has had to happen because your loved one
don't look the same that's horrendous
to have to tell somebody you can't say goodbye to your loved one you have to say goodbye to a
closed coffin you're a public enemy number one and i get it yeah but they can be quite
quite nasty in that respect and i i understand i do do you just have to take that line yeah
water off a duck's back absolutely there's no i am not going to stand there and argue with them and try to reason with them they cannot say goodbye to their family member that's that's
heartbreaking so you have to let it go over you and then have a little cry out in the vaping shed
after yeah i imagine i would vape a lot yeah i do oh my gosh i don't really know what the
environment looks like in where in which you prepare the body
is it really clinical is there anything you do to make the workplace seem a little bit
like warmer and it has to be a temperature for obvious reasons so it's always chilly in there
it is clinical but some funeral homes probably are still in the Victorian times and they need to up a little bit.
Are there any more modern tools that you use now
versus what was around a few years ago?
Yeah, 100%.
Like the injectors and stuff like that.
I still use an old-fashioned suture needle to close a mouth.
Some people use the injector, which basically pumps top and bottom,
spin it around, mouth closed.
I hate that thing.
Really? Yeah, because I can't get it equal. So's just awful so i just don't use it i just use an old-fashioned
suture oh my gosh and you were saying um about the the the jaw thing can you explain that that
so if someone isn't properly trained in embalming there are sadly there are situations where i can't
name the company but yeah they don't train their staff properly,
and they don't do any practice, anything on fake heads, fake mouths, nothing.
And it looks awful because you can get a jaw that is not sitting right.
It could be tilted, a tongue not set back right,
sticking out like prodding the cheek, and the lips are non-existent.
And that's...
Oh, your eyes, I wouldn't do itexistent and that's her yeah i wouldn't do
no that's horrendous for families to see so yeah we do there's been many times i think where myself
and two others who i work with as well have had to be called in and say look can you try to sort
this and it's not right because this person's meant to be at rest now they shouldn't be prodded
and poked around all the time and that's what sadly a lot of people don't think about is that person is still a person and
now they're having to have a suture removed which isn't easy and have to redo it again in hopes that
you're not going to essentially pierce any skin if they've got skin slip then there's no point even
trying because you're just going to ruin everything.
What's skin slip?
Exactly as it sounds, your skin slips off you.
And it sticks to your gloves.
It's quite putty-like.
Oh, you're joking.
Could you put Botox in people when they're gone?
Your wrinkles would be gone anyway.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh.
A lot of elderly people look a lot more younger.
Wow.
I remember going back to when my nan passed away she just bloated out
and it looked like a doll
bloated?
she went really puffy
she wasn't embalmed at this point
this was before
when she was farting
in her sleep
that's why it was
not really an emotional attachment to because it's why it was like there's like not really
an emotional attachment to because it wasn't it didn't even look like like you know one of those
like wax figures that have gone wrong and madam two swords yeah bless your land absolutely
ripping her no she'll be laughing hopefully something could come flying at your head later
on tonight oh my gosh well yeah i guess on the same beat as that,
is there anything that people might not know about the experience,
the process that would surprise them?
I think a lot of people don't realise during a post-mortem examination,
people seem to think that your organs are put back where nature intended.
They're not.
No.
They're all put in a clinical bag back inside your torso
and your chest cavity
and your stomach abdomen
and your suture back up
so your brain's not in your head
no
brain's in your belly
oh my god
yeah
that really freaks me out a little bit
yeah
so does that mean my head would be concaved in a bit
or was there something else
no
your skull
we put the back of your cranium
straight back in
oh suture you up and you're all good just thrown in like a goodie bag it's a bag but yeah wow why
yeah because once you start cutting and taking things out it's not going to go back
it's that you're just going to wobble and if things are starting to purge out
right it's best to keep
it all contained i suppose it's yeah that does make sense you do know what you're talking about
um do you find like obviously you said that some of these homes are still not as modern as others
do you find that it's difficult as a woman in this industry yeah how so it's still quite a
man-orientated industry i'm seeing a lot of
women do not get me wrong before anyone says anything i'm not but it's still very much a man's
way no way and this is why i've attracted a lot of hate from men across the country in this
profession is because the older generation of funeral directors would never sit and discuss
this so openly whereas i think it's important i love that you do yeah it's important you'd be surprised it's
such a taboo thing and i think that's what makes people so terrified of discussing options yeah
around the death that it ends up with the families being taken advantage of exactly is that why you
started the tiktok yeah yeah yeah 100 because there was a lot of things i thought
well this shouldn't does the family know this like it's a family aware oh no it's okay they'll
just be charged anyway what and that's why when then i went to my manager and i said look i really
think i've got something here educational wise yeah he was like i'm not too sure and after about
three months of me just badgering and badgering he drew up a contract said right you can speak about this this is this yeah and it just took off from there see
that's why like you said earlier would you like to meet who embalmed you thinking about it i don't
think i would want a man embalming me absolutely not no no i don't even like living male doctors
i know some men embalmers who are absolutely fantastic caring amazing the person who helped me through my
training he was embalmer of the year um andy he i can honestly tell you anyone in his hands
are in the best hands possible i suppose i'm maybe portray like in my mind i'm drawing up
a really the embalmers from nanny mcfee right i said it like they're really old fictional fictional
like they're based on people you know the ones i'm talking about
like yeah like the old men in that right versus like yeah i just don't think i want would want
that i think i think it's just that idea that's definitely for us like like a woman's touch a lot
more delicate but a lot of times woman is requested
yeah especially if a woman has had a bad experience or something like that that's definitely something
we are seeing a lot more of um and going back to your like answer regarding a lot of hate you're
getting from other men yeah can you like elaborate on that like what is what yeah they contact my workplace really yeah they've done that um what's the issue uh basically i'm basically i'm broadcasting what should be kept behind closed
doors and what are they saying when they reach out to your work um that i'm deplorable i'm disgusting
and that i should be struck enough basically and my manager very kindly puts an email back and says
well if you put everything that she's put wrong, has she been correct?
Then we'll go further.
But she's more than capable of what she's doing.
I remember one phone call was actually an elderly man in, funny enough, Milton Keynes.
I've been a funeral director 57 years and I have never seen something so horrific being exploited over TikTok.
And my manager said, said well unsubscribe and
don't follow her then good i mean that must be yeah my gosh it's it's just it's just archaic
to assume that like ultimately death should be kept behind closed doors because it's 2024
like i'm i think the generation a lot of us are quite scared of death absolutely yeah and it's
quite natural naturally yeah but it's like
the processes that come after it should not be something that hush hush hush because it just
makes it even more i think it's important families know yeah yeah i think families need to know that
they do have rights and actually funerals are expensive they are incredibly expensive and
a lot of the things that funeral directors charge
you don't need yeah you don't need so maybe that's why they're getting so angry very much
so it's all money yeah of course it is it's all money but yeah they'll say that you're the one
that is exploiting people possibly i let him crack on yeah well i think the way that you handle it
your manager handles it is i I think I'm very respectful.
I never show deceased on my TikToks ever.
Yes, I film in the mortuary, but I've got permission.
And, you know, when I open up the body store to show you the shelving unit where the bodies go,
there's no deceased in there at that time.
So I'm very respectful.
I'm very polite in my responses.
And I just think it's a shame
that you have to come onto social media to type hate
quite frankly scroll on that's what I tend to do so if you don't see if you're seeing something
you don't like just this is it yeah talking in like a broad range how much money does it cost
for a person to be embalmed anything from 180 to about 350 oh that's quite cheap 180 pounds to 350 and like
if are there generally like extra charges um not all of us have extra charges to be honest
it's a set fee so the higher like the 350 would be if they need a complete full working
you're talking body molds wax reconstruction everything a full set of photos no i'm under
the 180 that's fine that's nice but acrylics please yeah infills normally yeah infills in a
file but yeah um it's not something but again the funeral directors call us in but some funeral
directors will put their own charge on top of that for calling us in we don't as an embalmer
we don't see that we see the money that we charge the funeral home but on the invoice it
would be for the time of using their facilities yeah brilliant interesting yeah um and of course
you share your whole journey all of this on tiktok yeah can i ask like what your most asked
questions are what are the biggest curious morbid curiosities there are?
Do we remove the eyes?
Oh.
Do you?
No.
We have little eye caps we put in the eyes.
How do we suture a mouth?
One of my pin videos is showing you how we suture,
and I have brought a suture here to show you.
Oh, can we see?
Yeah.
So that's when you close the mouth?
Yeah.
Is that not related to karma suture? No. Could you see? Yeah. So that's when you close the mouth? Yeah. Is that not related to Kama Sutra?
No.
Could you imagine?
No.
That's an eye cap.
Oh, wow.
I thought they would have different colours on them, like contact lenses.
Like a glazed wasp eye.
This is a mouth guard that will help keep your lips in place.
Okay.
So they're all bumpy.
Can I feel it?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
This goes in...
Oh, my gosh, the spikes.
Do you want to describe this for audio?
It looks almost like...
A mouth guard?
Yeah, but it looks like a mini eye shield.
We can cut it to size as well.
And this is what we would use to suture.
This looks like a fish hook, everyone, doesn't it?
Yeah, this is almost like a crochet needle.
Not crochet, embroidery needle.
Oh, that makes me shudder.
That does.
That goes through here, up through your septum,
back down through the top gun, bottom one,
and we just knot it through.
Put that on a sewing machine.
Nope.
Sorry.
I'm all right with holding that one, thank you, Billy.
Are you sure?
That's crazy. That's literally a quick five minute job five minutes yes gosh they've got no teeth oh a lot quicker
i still want my teeth out when i get i mean i've never had that request and if i'm honest i don't
know how we would form your i'm not really sure
we could probably look like the joker wouldn't yeah like some little strings that's horrible if
i'm honest it would be terrifying yeah can you can you can you ask to be put in a certain pose
we have like girls who want their hands oh like that to show off any rings or anything we've had that as
well um but no i wouldn't say we've had any unusual poses no be quite difficult in a coffin to be fair
because you've only got so much room oh yeah and we've got to get a lid on you as well so we don't
want to be hammering your knees down really oh god knees yeah yeah that is really wild do you have any um people that uh have like natural burials
yeah natural burials so does that change your process yeah natural if you're having a natural
burial we would obviously say no embalming with that one if at all possible because the whole
point of natural is you're going natural um also we would use a coffin it's normally wicker but
there is sort of like another type
of coughing as well which is like a willowy type and that will help when you decompose to absorb
all your fluids essentially and that will then be able to help with the tree that's growing or
the bush that's growing in place i actually really like that idea there's a place just
past andover it's absolutely beautiful natural burial grounds it's gorgeous i think that's how
i'd like to go.
Natural burial in a pod?
Yeah, in a little pod with a little tree growing outside of me.
How much does that cost?
A lot cheaper than the standard.
You don't need, I suppose, the embalming or... Are the coffins less expensive?
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
How much is a coffin?
Depends on the size.
So, your size?
Don't size me up like that.
About £6.50.
£6.50?
I'm expensive, darling.
For a wicker with no flowers, though, this is basic.
Oh, you'd want some flowers, wouldn't you?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, your costs have just gone right up.
£4,000 on flowers, please.
What a crazy...
Yeah, I don't know.
The thought of it all is just crazy.
Would you go in and pick the
the coffin whilst you're looking at the body that's not my area oh right okay so no they come
in and we just told what one to put them in so if anyone's had any cosmetic procedures how does
that sit in the body after these cost five grand they ain't going anywhere so they they're staying
okay what happens if they get well not what happened it's normally then i was gonna say
what happens if they get thrown in the goodie bag of everything else there's no reason to remove them
they're there yeah wow like if if there was filler or anything in the face would that
migrate yeah no lips can look a lot more protruding yeah um because you've got to remember when you're
looking at your loved one you're looking at from a bird's eye view you're looking down so you might
look a little bit more swollen in that respects but apart from that we've got no reason to solve
anything so interesting yeah i think it must have been like an old myth that like yeah like people
had like some people had so much botox they weren't allowed to be
buried oh because the plastic yeah plastic in the ground that's a complete myth yeah very much so
oh wait but what if they were getting what if under the fire what's it called again cremated
might be a bit more sticky to begin with but but you'll be seeing ash, so you'll be all right. Gosh.
There's a celebrity that died,
and I believed it as if it was gospel
that they weren't allowed to be cremated
because they had so much silicon.
You read too much crap online, really.
I mean, breast implants, things like that,
can be cremated quite, yeah.
So other than the, can people be buried with eyeballs,
is there any other popular questions?
Do they sit up?
Do they sit up?
No.
And that's a no?
That's a firm no, no.
Again, making noises, they do.
They do gasp.
Is that scary?
What?
Gasp?
Yeah.
Gasp?
Yeah, if you're moving them or if you hit like a bump or something like that
oh that must be terrifying no it was at first you'd be like checking shit like you're okay
but now it's just like oh yeah he's okay we did see a question on your tiktok about
when a certain bit of a male's appendage yeah the the inflation dairy set
we talk about sex all the time you talked about your bumhole yesterday come on sorry
if if we get you fresh enough and i do mean fresh fresh like still pretty much in that moment
maybe but there's nothing pumping so you're
gonna go down we don't strap you down we don't cut it off and we don't cut it off yeah no we don't
the worst we will do is just put something over it in case you leak yeah that's it um is there
anything you could do to make them smell a bit nicer like a perfume wouldn't do the job we spray them with perfume or aftershave obviously
so that the family have that smell yeah that's nice um which we do wash them we do wash their
hair but sadly when the smell has properly set in oh that's why you have like scented in the room
you go and see your loved one you'll see like plug-in scented candles and stuff just to help
mask that i need
one in the box i reckon you want one in the box yeah a little kind of air freshener in the box
with me just so it puffs up when your loved one's looking over you one of those automatic ones
wait wait i have a question how often do you see people getting buried in bras
um not often yeah because i think that's worst thing be uncomfortable
in heaven and coffin yeah no absolutely i'd be fuming if i was to go in a bra yeah thank you
the reason i pay five grand is so that i don't need to wear them all the time so no um not often
if i'm honest pants more often than not nice yeah modesty bit of modesty sorry if my ladies
are hanging loose
don't worry
we'll make sure
that they're right
on the chest
not on the armpits
we do that
oh that's
how do you do that
tape
just body tape
really
and then once we
obviously set your arms
because we set your arms
in such a way like this
oh lush
and then we interlock
yeah
there you go
so don't worry
you'll be put
like a Tudor
yeah do people do people do people ever
take photos they do yeah we um obviously we do offer it for infants and we offer photos to be
taken with the family but yeah they do take photos of their loved ones and that's all right at the
end of the day that's going to be the last time they're going to physically see their loved one um i have no issues with that at all whatsoever to be fair i wish
when my father passed away i had a camera phone back then because i didn't and i would have
absolutely took photos of my father so really yeah wow that's amazing i guess i think for a
lot of people it can be so distressing when you see a person in their last moments of life.
Yeah.
So it must be an amazing thing to see someone, at least a nice last memory.
That's the thing.
When somebody is terminally ill and they're passing away, they don't look the same.
They look so poorly.
They look so sad.
And then they generally look at peace when they pass away.
And a lot of families always say they look better now than what they did three four weeks ago yeah wow and that's even before an embalming so i
remember actually because i didn't go to see my nan when she passed away um but my aunt came back
and said like it was actually a real kind of like relief because she looked at peace she looked
like she just looked almost more like herself than
what she did all their pains gone so that's yeah that's the biggest thing um we hear that probably
weekly they look better than what they did a few weeks ago that must be really like empowering yeah
it's lovely because obviously sadly i don't know them before they passed away. I only see your loved ones when they are sadly deceased.
So it is nice to hear that the family's gone away with a positive
and there's nothing positive about the job in that respect.
Sadly, there's somebody is this worst part of their life.
They're grieving.
But when you hear that feedback, you think, okay, I've given them a goodbye, a peaceful goodbye.
And again, it doesn't always happen sadly. And we do feedback this is wrong this is wrong yeah how do you do like say if
someone's it breaks me it breaks me because you try and you can only do so much of course yeah and
we ask for pictures but if we suture the mouth and the lips don't sit right that's quite a big
thing for somebody who you know wants to remember their loved one in her
mouth never sat like that that it breaks me because I think I can't do anything about that
now and I just want to make it right and I think all of us feel that to be fair because it's not
something you should be rushed you should take your time 100% and you should be able to go to
the family right I've seen these pictures I think I've got enough but again we can't always get it right
and that's the hardest part how often can a person see their loved ones I mean they could see them
every day if they wanted to how long are they there for um average wait for a funeral now is
between two to three weeks oh wow so they are there a while but what I would always say is be
guided by the funeral director if you come in on one day and they say look today
might have to be the day is the last day please please know they're saying that for a very good
reason what would denote of last day like what state we would see changes we would see mold
creeping in um once mold sets in we can't we're not going to be getting rid of that um also the
facial structure breaks down so we can see the bridge of the nose starting to collapse in yeah yeah yeah really morbidly
we were talking about like the other day weren't we how long until you you start decomposing like
it would if without embalming i mean you start to decompose straight away internally so
it's quite quick but for it to be visible three four weeks
for it to actually start to show in the face this is probably going to be a really dumb question
but when you die can you still have allergic reactions somebody asked me that and you know
what i've never had that um i've never seen anything but i'm guessing my again i'm only a guessing i'm gonna say no because you've got nothing
inside you no so yeah i have had people ask me that and to be honest all of us have been sat
there looking at each other going i don't know actually we've not had anyone come up with hives
let's put it that way so yeah would you have to dye people's hair or anything
just touch the roots up but never had to done a
full dye i don't think i'd want could you imagine that would seem so you say you can do nails yeah
eyelashes and stuff you had to be trained in that yeah yeah do you do it on a life people too
yes i i do do makeup for people as well yeah could i just ask one quick question before you round up
so obviously you mentioned that you wouldn't want to be embalmed no is there a reason for that or yeah i've seen the process i'm not going for that
thank you right no it's embalming is intrusive there's no way to get around that sadly it is
intrusive and if you know you've had a post-mortem we have to open you back up take your bag of organs
out and we have to dig to find your character or directory it's not an easy process and then you know i just it's not something i want
yeah it's not something i want do you see many young people like wanting to get into the profession
yeah more definitely um i think a lot of people want to join the job thinking it's going to be
quite graphic and gory and it's not
it's no it's really not apart from the big old bag of insides but again it's i suppose if you're
used to it it's not because you don't bleed out so it's not all that graphic literally you make
the incision you just get through the fatty tissue tweezer it out and you're away it's a lot
neater than i'm imagining yeah yeah so i'm listen to Bloodbath. I'm imagining like Sweeney Todd.
None of that.
No.
None of that.
Wow.
Wow, I mean, I'm yet to meet someone that wants to go into the profession, but...
Yeah, we were saying it's like one of those jobs
that I know exists, but can't imagine it.
You'll have to visit my workplace for a day.
Oh my God.
Oh, wait.
Yeah.
Can we do that?
Can do, yeah. Oh do that candy yeah oh that
would be scary be fine we order dominoes on a night time so you're good oh i love that how long
did it take you to become desensitized to this job it took me a while yeah um it didn't come
easy to me there was definitely a good few months where i was like and the smells especially going and going
oh my days i i would change smoke just to have a smell of cigarettes rather than yeah oh wow and
then when i started obviously becoming quite ill with that i was like we'll go on the vape instead
but yeah it took a while but now like i said there are sites that come in and even to now you'd be like oh okay bless your
heart but you do you do genuinely get used to it gosh wow like is there anything that you think
like the public should be aware of or there's a big thing that myself and another mortician her
name is evie evie the mortician she's also on tiktok she's got a petition
going at the moment people who lose babies under 24 weeks are not entitled to a funded funeral
and are often turned away for funeral homes um and the hospitals will disregard the remains that's
the wording yeah and it's really important that this is changed because it doesn't matter what
gestation you lose a baby that little life deserves a funeral and if people can maybe just go and sign that petition
that would be amazing we'll link it thank you that would be amazing thank you oh my gosh wow
that's crazy though it's horrendous women also um they have their baby and they are kept on the
labor ward hearing babies being born around them
and they have to walk out of that there's not many hospitals have a separate area away from
a labor ward and that's quite traumatic and if you have a miscarriage under 12 weeks
they basically tell you to flush down the toilet and yeah it's awful truly awful
jesus i mean i yeah i'm i think this is a very dark side it's it's something that needs
to be addressed massively and there are failings within the nhs regards to that um they you know
one hospital i'm not going to name them but they're quite close to my area so people know
they actually give the women condoms after they've
miscarried their baby yeah oh my gosh that and yeah me and my couple of others when we read that
we were like oh what the hell so yeah it's quite barbaric horrific i mean i feel like we can find
out a lot about your profession and more information about that on your tiktok right yeah 100 yeah i'm very open about that and definitely share the cruel side of miscarriages
and how women are treated after that definitely and for the audience listening at home what is
your tiktok the mortuary tech nice amazing well thank you so much for talking thank you for having
me it's been very interesting enlightening
enlightening i can't say i'm any more comfortable with the idea of death sorry but that's fine
that's not what you had to do i am i think i'm okay yeah i think kind of like enlightened my
eyes to you're just gonna be absolutely fabulous in your coffin aren't you yeah i love it no it's
really interesting thank you so much that's okay thank you for having me
no problem at all and we will see you all next week