Photographer Charlie Phillips talks to Dan Damon about the rituals and fashions of Afro-Caribbean funerals in London. Starting with the Windrush generation in the 1950s to today. Charlie’s work will be published in the book ‘How Great Thou Art’. The title for this book is borrowed from the popular hymn sung at funerals.
This doesn’t mention one of the aspects of many African and Caribbean funerals (of which I have taken many) namely the opening of the coffin in church before the words of commendation. The family go forward first, and there is weeping and shouting out in grief; then the rest of the mourners file past, with children often lifted up to see the deceased. Compare and contrast English reticence, the stiff upper lip, and the almost morbid fear of confronting death (yes I know that the aforementioned phrase is a contradiction in terms). Compare and contrast too the growing American practice of funerals as a private affair, to be followed, distressingly, by a disembodied ‘memorial service’ or ‘celebration of the life of X’,almost as though death of the body is to be denied and swept out of view.