ON the basis that christenings, weddings and funerals are very much part of everybody's family history, and that occasionally we need a bit of a laugh, I thought I would tell you about a typical - and somewhat hysterically, if unintentionally, funny - Yorkshire funeral I attended a few years ago. I have called the subject header "A Bit of A Do", BTW, because that was the title of a wonderful Yorkshire Television series on this very theme, starring that brilliant actor David Jason. I expect many UK listers will remember it, and no doubt it has been seen somewhere on the PBS channels in the US and Australia as well. "We're going to a bit of a do" is very much a Yorkshire saying, and the series every week was based on a wedding, funeral, dinner dance, charity function, etc, and needless to say all kinds of things ALWAYS went wrong. I have every single episode on video and every time I watch them I am reminded of my dear old Auntie Mary's funeral, which was a classic A Bit Of A Do, except it's true (I swear!)... Back in the early 1980s this was, and my Aunt Mary, my father's sister, died at 92, the last of four siblings. She had lived in Bradford all her life in a typical back-to-back house since the late 1880s. However, when she died her area had been completely absorbed by Asian immigrants and she was literally the last English person in the road. She had long been a widow and even before the funeral, her niece, my first cousin E - - - - - (who shall remain nameless because she's still very much alive, though quite elderly herself now), who actually owned Aunt Mary's house, had already sold it to an Asian family. So as the funeral cortege left the house, the new owners were arriving with all their furniture in a van! Aunt Mary's Asian neighbours had been very good to her and quite a number stood around to pay their respects, making little bows as the cortege left. It was already like a scene from a film, with lots of people in Asian dress standing in the street in the middle of Bradford, bowing to us. Cousin E, a fierce, formidable Yorkshirewoman, was livid because Aunt Mary had made the executor of her will - and thus handed all the funeral arrangements to - a male second cousin on the other side of the family (her mother's side), whom neither of us knew. This unfortunate gentleman was called Harry, was elderly himself and walked with a stick and had a club foot. According to protocol, since he had made all the funeral arrangements, he should have ridden in the first car behind the coffin, but Cousin E was having none of it. Grabbing me by the shoulder, she roared: "We're not letting that Harry whatisname ride in the first car. Come on, follow me." And, literally dragging me by the arm along the pavement, she was off and running, scattering the other mourners before her! She barged poor old Harry out of the way, virtually kicking his stick from under him, and bundled me headfirst into the first car. The bewildered undertaker stuck his head through the window and asked: "What's going on? I've made all the arrangements with this gentleman here," indicating Second Cousin Harry, who was still trying to pick himself up from the ground. "We're her nearest relatives," roared Cousin E. "I'm her niece and this is her nephew," pointing to me, cowering in the back of the car trying to pretend I wasn't there. Fortunately, Harry proved to be a gentleman and of a forgiving nature and assured the undertaker he didn't mind. After we'd despatched Aunt Mary, there came the inevitable funeral tea. This was the usual Yorkshire ham salad "do". I had always known my dear old dad (long departed) had been a very good-looking young man with a colourful history in his day (his day being back in the 1920s) and quite a few folks said he looked like the Duke of Windsor. I had only just really started doing the family history at this time and I had already come across a few eye-opening revelations, including a first marriage of his that I hadn't known about previously and also a half-sister of mine who was news to me as well (no longer, since we've met a few times but that's another story). Anyway, the funeral tea was a somewhat surreal and unreal experience, since a stream of elderly ladies (mostly in their 80s) kept coming up to me and saying: "Ah, you're Roy, aren't you? I knew your father very well, you know", then giving me a large wink and sidling off to attack more ham sandwiches. Eventually, a very elderly lady approached me and introduced herself as the sister-in-law of my Aunt Mary (Aunt Mary having been married for many years to a lovely Scottish man, my Uncle Jock), and said in a Scottish accent: "Och, your father and I were engaged in 1925. Didna last, of course. He was always one fer the girls." I returned home on the train from Bradford to Hertfordshire that night having learnt more about my family history than I would have done from a hundred visits to record offices (oh yes, and clutching a priceless set of fading old family photos that I had managed to rescue from being chucked away by yet another elderly female cousin I'd never met before). I expect everyone has similar tales of an interesting family "do"? It's part of having a Yorkshire heritage! Roy Stockdill (Editor, Journal of One-Name Studies) Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:- www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you, if he does not why humiliate him? - Canon Sydney Smith