A labelled sample. David Hale and his family are made up; a real eulogy is written only from the stories you give us. This one is about 850 words, six minutes read aloud, in the voice of his daughter. It is followed by the reading copy we send: large type, short lines, a breath marked at each pause.
Sample eulogy: David Hale, by his daughter
The eulogy
If you ever had a car that wouldn't start on a Sunday, you probably already knew my dad. He'd be under it before you'd finished asking, and he would not take a penny, though he would take a cup of tea and forty minutes of your afternoon. He fixed things. That is the simplest true thing I can say about him, and it was never only cars.
David Hale was born in Doncaster in 1951, the youngest of three, and he liked to say he had been fixing his brothers' bikes since before he could ride one. He left school at fifteen for an apprenticeship at the bus depot, and he stayed with engines his whole working life: the depot, then the garage on Thorne Road that half of this room has had a car in at some point, then, after he retired, everyone's driveway.
He met my mum, Janet, at a wedding in 1979. He was not a dancer. She has told the story a hundred times and it changes a little each time, but the ending is always the same: he asked her to dance, trod on her foot, apologised for the whole of the next song, and she thought, well, he's honest. They were married forty-four years. He still made her tea every morning, in the same mug, and he still said "there you are, love" as if it were a surprise.
Dad never missed a game. Not one of mine, not one of Claire's, and later not one of the grandchildren's, however cold, however far, however badly we played. He would stand on the touchline in his depot coat with his hands behind his back, and he never shouted. Afterwards, whatever the score, he would say the same thing: "You turned up. That's the job." It took me about thirty years to understand that was the whole of his philosophy, and that he lived by it.
He taught me to drive in the Tesco car park on Sunday mornings, when it was empty. He had endless patience for a stalled engine and almost none for a sulk. When I finally passed, he shook my hand like a colleague and then checked my tyre pressures. He did that every time I visited for the next twenty-five years. I will miss standing in the kitchen hearing the little hiss of the gauge outside, knowing he was out there making sure I'd get home.
His jokes were terrible. I want that on the record. He had about nine of them and he told them in rotation, and the worst thing was that by the end you were laughing, not at the joke but at how pleased he was with it. The grandchildren, Sam and Ellie, can do all nine. I expect we'll hear a few later.
Dad was not a man of speeches, so I'll keep this one short, as he would have wanted. He was kind in a practical way. He showed up. He fixed what he could and he stayed with you when he couldn't. On behalf of Mum, Claire and me, thank you to everyone who has written and called and turned up this week, and to the nurses on Ward 12 at St Leonard's, who looked after him and, just as much, after us.
Dad, you turned up. Every time. That was the job, and you did it better than anyone I know. Go and have your tea.
The reading copy
What you actually stand up with: the same words set in large type, one thought to a line, with a mark (//) at each place to breathe. Two pages, numbered, so a dropped sheet is not a disaster. Yours comes as a PDF.
If you ever had a car that wouldn't start on a Sunday, //
you probably already knew my dad. //
He'd be under it before you'd finished asking, //
and he would not take a penny — //
though he would take a cup of tea //
and forty minutes of your afternoon. //
He fixed things. //
That is the simplest true thing I can say about him, //
and it was never only cars. //
(continues: 2 pages)
Four things we do with every eulogy
We start with the one true line. Yours might be "he fixed things" or "she never let anyone leave hungry". Everything else hangs off it, and it is what people repeat on the way out.
We use two or three stories, not twenty. A eulogy is not a biography. The facts of a life go in the obituary; the eulogy is what it was like to be in the room with them.
We write it to be said, not read. Short sentences. Places to breathe. Nothing you would stumble on at the hardest moment.
We give you a way to end. The last line is the one you are most likely to lose your voice on, so it is short, it is theirs, and you can see the finish coming.