Podcast by Hastings funeral directors lifts the lid on their jobs

The ins and outs of the funeral profession, and what happens behind the scenes when somebody dies, is often left unanswered for many people.

But two young funeral directors are hoping to change that with a series of podcasts aimed at demystifying the profession and answering some of those burning questions.

First Call, an interactive and live-stream podcast about funeral directing, is the brainchild of Terry Longley jnr, of Hawke's Bay funeral service Terry Longley & Son, and Whakatāne-based funeral director Bradley Shaw.

The pair, who met while studying the profession in 2017, decided upon the venture a few months ago. Longley says it was about "normalising what is the most natural thing in life".

It is the first of its kind in the country.

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The name of the podcast is centred around the first phone conversation, made by a family member, or someone else on behalf, which "sets in motion the entire funeral process".

"As funeral directors, we are always ready to respond 24/7 and the way we are engaged is when someone picks up the phone and calls the funeral home for the first time after someone passes away," Longley said.

"No matter what time of the day, or what we are doing, our job officially starts with that one phone conversation."

The pair's respective paths into the profession could not have been more different.

Longley, a third-generation funeral director, grew up in the funeral home, with his grandfather and father, but originally forged a career outside of the profession.

That was until he realised it was where his passion lay.

"For me, Dad and Granddad were always funeral directors. Some of my earliest memories were at the funeral home where I would watch Dad clean the hearse, I inscribed my own nameplates after school and did all that kind of stuff," Longley says.

Brad didn't have any of that. He had no family connections but always knew he wanted to become a funeral director.

As a teenager, he began working in funeral homes and had already gained experience both in New Zealand and overseas before buying Gateway Funeral Services in 2015, at age 20.

Now in their mid to late 20s, both are aware they are not stereotypical funeral directors, something they don't shy away from - rather, they embrace it.

They are both big on innovation and moving the funeral sector forward - finding new ways to continue the old traditions. First, it was livestreaming funeral services. And while "it doesn't take much to do a podcast", they wanted to do it differently - livestreaming, and interacting with viewers in real-time. It will then be available on all podcast platforms for audio afterwards.

Longley said the podcast would be educational, fully transparent, and with nothing off-limits when it came to answering questions from the public.

They also wanted to do it in a "fun way", without still being respectful.

"We don't want to be these two boring old people talking about death but we want to without being disrespectful."

They will air episode one on October 22, and will release two more instalments in November and December.

Episode one will be an Introduction to Funeral Directing, where they talk a bit about themselves, answer questions and shed some light on how you could land yourself a job at a funeral home.

The second episode will be about embalming, something which Longley says people are "really intrigued about", but don't know much about.

"It is actually the only thing that funeral homes can do that the public can't," he says.

"I don't hide that fact. Everything else the public can do themselves; there's nothing stopping you from making your own casket, buying flowers, sending in newspaper notices, all that stuff can be done - we just know how to do it."

It also made it easier for people going through grief, he said.

The third episode will cover other aspects including the cost of funerals and their work with the police. The episodes will also delve into the emotional side, and the impact it has on funeral directors. "We're only human", he added.

Depending on the response they get, Longley says they may consider doing more.

"We are hoping to get a good response. This hasn't really been done before in New Zealand. When you do something for the first time it is such an unknown if people want to hear what we've got to say," he said.

But for now, he is just looking forward to getting these things out there. "Hopefully it will allow people to see that it's not this big scary industry that some think it is, and that they come away actually learning a thing or two after watching what we've got to say."

The first episode of First Call with Terry Longley and Bradley Shaw will be live-streamed on the Terry Longley & Son Facebook Page at 7pm on Tuesday.