Write someone else's

obituary or, better still,

write your own

 

Marian Pallister

 

www.bobsmithart.com

When I read Kenneth Roy's unreserved apology to the un-dead Shirley Temple Black (17 November), my first reaction was to laugh out loud and my second was to Google the lady. I could have sworn the Good Ship Lollipop had sailed off into the sunset with the corkscrew-curled dimplex on board.
     But of course, according to Wikipedia, Yahoo et al, the lady is still living, and at least as much space is dedicated to her UN work and awareness-raising of cancer issues as to her roles in movies such as 'Dimples' and 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'.
     While I was rummaging around the internet, I stumbled over something a great deal more startling than the idea that Mr Roy might be threatened twice in one week by the might of the legal system: Wiki Obits. This is, and I quote, 'A free database of obituaries for celebrities, famous people and everyone else. Create your obit – or edit one of the celebrity obituaries already available in Wiki Obits'.
     I am of a generation of journalists who started their careers in the days when there was a 'obits drawer'. In it were the skeletons (pardon the indelicacy) of obituaries-to-be. They were updated meticulously by elderly journalists in tweed suits who smoked pungent pipes. Yes – in the office. Those who were to be honoured by an obit were the great and the good. Occasionally, if one were to be considered knowledgeable in a certain field, one would be asked to help with the updating. The original documents seemed to be kept under lock and key, however, much like a will or the deeds to a house.
     Over the years I have written obituaries. Tricky things, as only the Daily Telegraph has a reputation for really calling a spade a spade, dead or otherwise. Politeness, of a kind that may well have disappeared along with the tweed suits and pungent pipes, was always the number one requirement at the old Glasgow Herald. Accuracy was the stock-in-trade of the obituary brigade. Economy with the truth was always exercised if Lady Ponsonby Smythe had been a knocker-back of gin slings or a little too close to German cousins during the war.
     Now you write your own tribute, in advance, on Wiki Obits.
     And while you’re at it, you can add to the obituary of a celebrity, a famous person (isn't there a figure of speech for that juxtaposition?) or 'everyone else'.
     You can say what a splendid fellow you are. What good works you've done. How kind and caring you have been. What success you have achieved and what honours have been poured out on your golden head. 'I was always the life and soul of the party, though I was never the worse for wear. Always supportive of the staff, and as wise as Solomon in industrial disputes.'
     You can add to the mythologies of others. What a lark.

 

     But hang on a minute, these are real people and one day they'll be someone's loved one who has passed on, to use the jargon of the funeral parlour. And what do we know of the celebrity or the famous person other that what has appeared in the media?
     The olde-worlde obituary writers checked their facts and when their subject eventually did go aboard the Good Ship Lollipop, they consulted with friends and relatives of the deceased, just to make doubly sure they had got it right. Belt and braces. Wiki Obits, although demanding citations, is declaring open house, so what else could one as innocent as I am of the life and times of the 2011 celebrity and famous person add to a Wiki Obit other than information from the all-knowing Daily Record that Ruth Davidson is a kick boxer – oh, and leader of the Scottish Tories.
     There is a chance of confusing even the editor of SR, as there is a space for date of death and cause (to be specified). Some unscrupulous Wikiholic could run amok and fill in the details and have them around the earth like a Puckish girdle within 40 nano-seconds. Oh yes, the thought police would correct it, but how many millions of us would have read the misinformation before the mischief was spotted?
     In the US they are trying to pass legislation to regulate Youtube, Wiki sites and social networks. That's a bit of a double-edged sword for operations like the CIA who are privileged to tap into everything from our online choices at Tesco and Amazon to our incitements on Facebook to come to the pub (or the riot, I suppose – I lead a quiet life) and may regret losing such valuable information if they start pulling the plug.
     In the meantime, it is worth remembering that Jimmy Wales himself, a co-founder of Wikipedia, has told students that while this online encyclopaedia may be a starting point for research, he can't imagine why they would think it was a stopping point. The same, one hopes, will be remembered of Wiki Obits. They haven't killed off Shirley Temple Black yet, but how are we ever going to be sure that her curls and dimples were her own, that she actually was a precocious little madam and that there wasn't a vertically-challenged double standing in during the tricky bits in her movies, or that the date we are eventually given for her demise is correct?
     I love online. But I would like someone in a tweed suit and a pipe stuck between his teeth monitoring the obits in the cyber drawer where they are now kept until death us do part.

 

Marian Pallister is an author and tutor who once journalled (without a pipe)