Helping people most in need

"The real part of a funeral director is working with people, helping them through that period of...
"The real part of a funeral director is working with people, helping them through that period of time when they’re most vulnerable’’ - Funeral director Michael Ardley. Photo: Hamish MacLean.
Michael Ardley and his wife Maureen have sold Oamaru’s Whitestone Funeral Services Ltd to Dunedin-based Hope & Sons Ltd. North Otago reporter Hamish MacLean catches up with Mr Ardley.

The thousands of people who have met Michael Ardley as a funeral director in North Otago have required compassion and empathy.

When someone died, their family was vulnerable and the role he played was a great responsibility, Mr Ardley said.

While many people thought of a funeral director as a person who handled and looked after dead people, the people Mr Ardley said he cared for were those still living and grieving the loss of a loved one.

At 65 years old, Mr Ardley still loved his job, because for him there was nothing more satisfying than knowing he had done a good job "for a family that have really needed you".

"Everything you do when you’re looking after people, you leave a bit of you with them," he said.

"It does take a bit out of you in that sense. But it’s humbling to know that families out there look to you to help them through this period of time when what they’re doing is they’re handing over to you something that is one of the most precious things they have — and that is their dad, nana, granddad, whoever it might be — that’s the humbling thing about it. You don’t get over that."

With the coroner’s contract, Mr Ardley often had to extract people from cars after fatal crashes. He has attended sudden deaths and as he said, "there’s the embalming side of it".

"But the real part of a funeral director is working with people, helping them through that period of time when they’re most vulnerable, protecting them too. ... It’s a trust thing, they are trusting you."

Mr Ardley’s life had been lived in stages, he said, and he had planned for a stage of "future-proofing" his business, and stepping back, for some time.

But this next stage in his life came quicker than he expected after he started talking to Dunedin’s Jannette and Michael Hope.

Hope & Sons Ltd, who will become the owners of Whitestone Funeral Services Ltd, had the same ethos as Mr Ardley and his wife Maureen.

The family-owned business had the same devotion to the community and they could offer his staff security, and due to their size could allow staff more support flexibility.

For now Mr Ardley would stay on as one of four funeral directors at Whitestone Funeral Services Ltd.

But he would have more time for travel, more time for fishing, golf, and his motorcycle he rides with the Ulysses Club of NZ. The Ardleys would have more time for their adult children. They had a son in Dunedin and a daughter in Timaru.

"When you get to about 65, which I am, you start thinking about another stage in your life," he said.

Mr Ardley started his life in North Otago, but he took the long route back here.

In the 1950s, Mr Ardley was a pupil at Herbert School. But his father was a fencing contractor, and he attended high school in Gore.

He trained as a chef at Manapouri. And then moved to Alexandra, where from 1970 to 1975 he owned the Silver Dollar Grill.

"The girl I was marrying [Maureen] was not going to marry me while I worked 100 hours a week at the restaurant," he said. And so he moved to Timaru and became a meat inspector, he bought a house and raised his children. But he needed a change.

Mr Ardley went back to college at the age of 40 to qualify at the Central Institute of Technology at Upper Hutt as a funeral director.

And when he began work at Betts Funeral Services in Timaru, through his work he experienced a culture change.

His work suddenly brought him into contact with people "going through probably one of the worst times of their lives".

"I actually had more empathy for these people than I thought I’d have."

Mr Ardley’s brother had already died, as had an aunt, and his father.

"I suppose you develop an empathy once you have been through it a wee bit yourself," he said.

"I love people."

The Ardley’s moved to Oamaru in 1994 after Betts Funeral Services bought Stringer Wilson & Perkins in 1992. The business, which dates back to Herbert in the late 1800s, was renamed Stringer, Wilson, Perkins and Betts until the Timaru company renamed the funeral home Whitestone Funeral Services.

In 1994, the Ardleys "had no option really but to buy it".

"So Maureen and I bought the firm here in 2002, and Oamaru has looked after us rather well since then. I love Oamaru — Oamaru is one of the greatest towns around."

Add a Comment