I have an unusual distinction. Consequently, maybe I am the only person alive who used to be pushed into a cremator each week to clean the gas jets. It was a palaver. Firstly, it’s Monday morning and the cremator has cooled over the weekend. Secondly, the heat in the refractories can really damage your lungs so it must be sufficiently cool. Thirdly, a board is placed on the hearth and I slide in on my back. Goggles protect my eyes and in my hand, half an axesaw blade! Then, I position myself under each gas jet, four of them along the top of the chamber. I have to use an inspection lamp in order to see. The blade then has to be slid between the two tubes forming the jet, gas in the middle and air around the outside. Sadly, nobody ever took a photo of me cleaning a cremator.

Claustrophobia

I used to lie there resting, nice and warm. Mimicking my hobby as a caver in those days, I did not feel claustrophobic. That was one reason why I alone could do it. I could also visualise myself as a body slid into the chamber precisely in the position I was in. I laughed at the thought. The black crust in the jets dropped out over my face and clothes. All four gas jets were now ready to carry out their gruesome business for the week. I slid out and rebalanced myself. We calibrated the smoke alarm and set the odour system that sprayed into the exhaust stack. Cremation was, and remains, a dirty process.

Cleaning a cremator

I never really gave this work much consideration, a task which is no longer necessary. There I was, a worker totally committed to providing a service. I never saw it as bad for me in any way and I needed my wages each week. When I look back, of course, it looks a little different. However, that is the value of age, we live and we learn. It is also the value today of not feeling, as I then did, impoverished. I would never complain, aware that jobs were few and far between. Consequently, I have that rare accolade, the man who went into a cremator each week and came back out again.