The first installment of independent death worker Hayley West’s two-part interview was published in last week’s Mail on September 25.
“The best way I can describe what I do is that I am a funeral director, but I don’t have a brick-and-mortar home. I have an arrangement with a funeral home in Daylesford where my people can have sleepovers in her fridge if needed. I’m a funeral celebrant, and I’ve trained as a death doula, but I don’t choose to do that work – I like the post-death space. I call myself a necro-pragmatist. I have empathy and like working with people but I like the practical stuff I like doing all the admin and transporting people to the cemetery,” she said.
“I ask the family what soundtrack they think their person would like for the ride. I was taking one person from Axedale to Daylesford. It was nighttime; it was raining. I was in the hearse, and it was just the person in the back and me, and I was just like, ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ What a privilege; that’s what it feels like – taking him on his final ride.”
Hayley still practices her art, although she has mostly moved away from object-making.
“I call myself a socially engaged artist. The last project I did involved the hearse. I made a sound installation, and people could lie down in the back or sit in the front and listen to it.
“Another work I did was in Glenlyon for Radical Fields. I got people to lie in a grave and consider their own mortality. The whole day was spent talking about death. I did a shroud demonstration as well.”
A big part of Hayley’s work and art practice is normalising death, saying “it will happen to all of us at some point.”
“My daughter has been exposed to me talking about death since she was a child, so it’s pretty normal,” she said.
“I’m always trying to say to her and her friends, ‘If you go to a dance or a party, I can take you in the hearse!’ She’s pretty cool about it.
“I think normalising children around death is a good thing too.
“I had a little gallery death advocacy space called ‘The Departure’ at The Mill when it first opened 10 years ago. I’d get families walking in, and they would see the wicker coffin that I had, and they’d either go, ‘wow, what’s that?’ Others would back out.
“My favourite project there was that I would give kids black marker pens, and I had this collective floor memorial work and ask people to write the name of someone who had died on the floor. The kids loved it. They’d be drawing pictures of their goldfish and cats and dogs and Nana. It was so great.
The Mail asked Hayley if she had any interesting or humorous experiences with death, and while she hasn’t had any in her professional life, she does have a personal anecdote about an incident involving her deceased brother-in-law while living in the Blue Mountains.
“We went to the mechanics hall in the morning where the funeral was going to be; the hearse backed up, and the pallbearers got out to get the coffin out of the back of the hearse. Just at that moment, someone jumped out of the hearse and jumped into the hearse; the keys were in the ignition, and it sped off with him in the back, in the coffin!
“I was standing there with the funeral director, and she said, ‘Oh my God! This has never happened before!’ My ex-husband jumped in his car and sped after the hearse. We rang the cops and said, ‘They’ve driven off with him in the back!’ And they said, ‘What, he killed him?’ And we said, ‘No, he’s already dead!’
“The hearse got to the end of a dead end, which was out the front of the grammar school, and all the kids were out playing rugby.
“My ex jumped out of the car and opened the door, and this guy said something like, ‘ Can you take me home?’ It turns out he had dementia and had been missing for days. He was really young; he was in his 30s, and he’d escaped from the care home.
“I put the story on Facebook and got a call from my friend in Darwin who was working for the ABC asking if he could interview me. It went viral and right around the world!
“A friend of mine went to a deathie quiz night recently, and it was a truth or dare question on the quiz!”
And the all-important questions:
What hobbies do you enjoy? I have a show on MainFM called ‘Dead Air’ which I have been running for the past five years, and I do the Read Along Mums program at Tarrangower Prison.
What music do you enjoy listening to? I’m really into doom metal. I always joke that when I grow up I want to be a doom metal vocalist. That’s what I aspire to be – probably when I’m 80 and have time. I love going to see live music.
Who are your three dream dinner guests? Grace Jones and Andrea Gibson, a poet who died recently – she was an amazing writer and Vivienne Westwood.
What are your philosophies in life? For me, facing your own mortality makes you live life to the fullest. We can all be fearful about how we might die, but death doesn’t bother me at all. You’ve got to take risks, within reason, and you’ve got to enjoy life. Some people really do fear death and what comes afterwards, but I don’t really care about what comes afterwards. I just want to decompose. I don’t want an expensive funeral. I want to spend money on bands and food. Life is short. If you have arguments with people, either let that person go or fix it straight away. I’m 55. I can’t be bothered.
Finally, what do you love most about the place you call home? People are really invested in the town; people want to get things happening. There’s a sense of community; everyone’s really friendly and a lot of creative people, and there’s so much fun stuff to do.
Hayley will be running a Coffin Weaving and Shrouding Castlemaine with Zimmi Forest on at 9.30am on Saturday October 10 and at 4pm on Sunday October 11. events.humanitix.com/shroud-immersion-castlemaine-vic