As thousands of students receive their A level, T level, BTEC and VTQ results today, I find myself pondering the fact that the ritual of receiving such results is very different from how it used to be. The enduring image published in all the newspapers of students leaping into the air and waving an opened envelope had become a virtual meme it was such a hackneyed joke; yet students these days are much more likely to be alone in their bedroom when they receive the information about their next steps.
While many schools still present results to students in person in the traditional way, most students will already have received confirmation of whether or not they have secured their preferred college place via an online portal first thing in the morning: the colleges and universities know their results before they do, and these days such information can be communicated instantly. This very modern take on a traditional rite of passage can feel like a bit of a let-down for those of us who went through the system some time ago, and it has made me think about the assumptions we make when it comes to life’s milestones and the rituals that accompany them.
This week I started watching a drama on Netflix. It seems to be one of the multiple television productions that has passed me by over the years, as apparently it was first aired on ITV several years ago. Finding Alice stars the wonderful Keeley Hawes as a woman whose life is upended when her husband dies after falling down the stairs of their newly-built home. The series explores the secrets that Harry left behind and the impact on his family. Episode 2 centres around Alice’s unconventional decision to hold Harry’s funeral (and burial!) on their own property, and one is expected to make some serious stretches of the imagination in terms of how she gets around the legal ramifications of such a process. This didn’t particularly bother me, as obviously a drawn-out exploration of the administrative nightmare that would be triggered in real life would not make for gripping drama.
What I did find myself irritated by, however, was the portrayal of Alice’s selected Celebrant for the funeral. It was made clear in the drama that the deceased was not religious and that there should therefore be no religious elements to his send-off. As if we were in a drama from decades ago, the Celebrant appeared bemused and perturbed by the notion that there would be no references to the Christian religion whatsoever. On the day itself, she even — and by this point I was shouting at the television — started to perform the sign of the cross in front of the gathering before she “remembered” that there was to be no religion involved and managed to stop herself mid-blessing.
Now, depending on what community you hail from, it may be the case that you have not had the opportunity to attend a non-religious funeral. Let me assure you that they are commonplace and uncontroversial. There are a plethora of Celebrants who lead such ceremonies and many of them will point blank refuse to include any religious references, never mind trying to sneak them in. Some take a more eclectic approach (one which my mother, who trained as a Celebrant for Humanists UK, used to call the “Pick ‘n’ Mix” option) and will throw in a prayer or a hymn if you want one. It was genuinely mind-boggling to think that a drama written as recently as 2021 would choose to imply not only that non-religious funerals are unusual and extraordinary, but that even those who provide such services find them so! With almost 40% of the UK population identifying themselves as “no religion” in the 2021 census, it really does beggar belief that non-religious ceremonies are still being portrayed on our television screens as a bizarre and unusual turn of events worthy of quirky comedy value.
As a person of no religion myself, I have a wide variety of friends with a range of beliefs. I have attended religious ceremonies, but I have also attended many funerals entirely without religion. Sometimes they have been held in a traditional crematorium, sometimes in a woodland burial ground. When the Celebrant has been a member of Humanists UK, the ceremonies have been strictly non-religious, but others have woven in a small nod to faith at the behest of some family members. I have even attended a baby naming ceremony run by someone who described themselves as “an inter-faith minister” and that one was possibly the weirdest. If there’s one thing I find myself agreeing with the deeply religious on, it’s that you surely can’t just pick the bits that happen appeal to you from a variety of religions, like some kind of spiritual smorgasbord.
Unlike the celebrant in Finding Alice, I do not believe in doing things the way they’ve always been done out of a misplaced attachment to ritual. Hopefully, the students receiving their results today will only benefit from the smoothness, immediacy and efficiency afforded to us by our new gods of technology. It is all too easy to be misty-eyed about traditional rites of passage, when in fact the modern way of doing things is far better and frankly less agonising than the way things used to be. These days, decisions are made immediately and the clearing process is a thousand times better and more efficient than it was in my day. You can even clear up as well as down! Everyone benefits from this. I have no doubt that plenty of students will still be leaping into the air when they receive their results, whether the Daily Mail is there to photograph them or not.
