A day in the life of an embalmer

(Jackie de Peyrecave, 35, has been an embalmer since her teens. She has addressed Women's Institute meetings and Muslim women's groups, with the aim of dispelling the public's ghoulish perceptions of embalming. It is, she says, one of the most caring professions. She and her husband, Andre, a computer manager, live near Basingstoke with their three children, Michael 12, Jennifer 10, and Christopher, 8)

By Lynne Wallis

I'm up most mornings at about 7.30 to get the kids ready for school. I'm not keen on breakfast, so I just have tea and take a bath. The kids are out of the house by 8.40, and the first thing I do is ring around the big funeral directors to see what's happening.

I do anything between one and eight bodies a day, and they take about an hour each. I try to plan my route and do the jobs in a circle, although that may get disrupted if a family want to view a relative quickly. I don't like to think of grieving relatives having to wait any longer than necessary to say good-bye to their loved ones.

I'm freelance -what they call a trade embalmer - so I travel around with my apron and overalls, fluids and other embalming equipment in the boot of my Volvo.

I leave home between 9.30 and 10 and make my way to my first case. I plug many cavities if it's necessary, remove the blood and replace it with formaldehyde, which restores a healthy colour to the body. Then I dress them in whatever clothes their relatives have provided and do hair and make-up, if required. Embalming is partly for presentation- the last image of the person is the one that stays with the relatives - but it also slows down the rate of decomposition.

The bodies generally arrive either naked or in shrouds from hospital. I've embalmed everything from stillborn babies to a 106-year-old woman, and I've done shotgun deaths, stabbings and suicides. The ones I feel sorriest for are teenagers, say about 18, just starting out. I go quiet all day when I do a teenager. Children are different, because usually they've always been loved and they haven't been through the pain of growing up. It's still terrible, of course.

I've embalmed several people I've known, and I tend to embalm and dress them and then go and say good-bye in the chapel of rest. It's the only way to cope.

People have this image of embalmers as gruesome old blokes working out of a dingy back room, but it's not like that and I don't find my work depressing at all. I love art and working with my hands embalming is creative.

We make people look so much better. Some do look naturally restful when they arrive, but if, for example, it's a cancer case, there's a lot of wastage and the pain they have suffered does show. But after death most people lose a couple of years, because the muscles relax and the torment in the face disappears. It's easy to put make-up on-dead bodies don't twitch or pull away when you're trying to apply mascara. If there's a trace of lipstick or mascara on a body, I'll try to match the shade.

People assume it must be scary working with the dead all day. I say it's the living you have to be scared of. Each body I embalm is someone's relative and has been loved. I do talk to the corpses quite often, saying things like, "Is our beard meant to be trimmed?" If I don't know which way the hair's meant to be parted, I'll ask the funeral director to ask the family. Details are important.

My profession undoubtedly makes me aware of my own, mortality, and I enjoy life because you never know how long it's going to last. I drink, smoke and eat red meat and butter. I am very cautious about the children, though, because I've seen the results of so many household accidents that could have been prevented.

The British Institute of Embalmers (BIE) has an annual bash in Kent - at Gravesend, funnily enough - but when embalmers get together they tend not to talk about work, unless someone's had a particularly unpleasant experience. Usually when my day's over I forget it, but some cases have stuck in my head, like a young man who died in a car accident who didn't look very pretty. For cases like that, the BIE runs reconstruction courses to train in the use of chemicals and wax to rebuild skin tissue.

In the evenings I put the kids to bed by about 9 p.m., and Andre and I play backgammon or watch telly. I'm forbidden to talk about embalming over the dinner table, which is quite reasonable. The family can't be that revolted, though, because my daughter, Jennifer, wants to do it. And it is one of the few professions where you know there'll always be work.

(Courtesy Sunday Times, London)

More Plus * Plight of Muslim women