I do, however, have some very definite plans for the being dead phase. I want to ensure that my body is put to full use for anatomical education and research and so I will bequeath my remains to a Scottish anatomy department. If I had a choice, I would rather be dissected by science students than medics or dentists, since I try to avoid doctors, and nobody likes going to the dentist, do they? For me, being the next Henrietta to a student anatomist would complete the circle of my life. I currently hold an organ-donor card and aim to sign my bequeathal forms on my sixty-fifth birthday, if I am spared. By then, the chances of the organs I have abused for so long being of any value to a living person will be pretty slim.
Tom is not happy. He doesn’t want me to be dissected. Despite being an anatomist himself, he is charmingly old-fashioned and would like to see me treated to a quiet and respectful funeral and then laid to rest in a place where the girls can visit me, should they ever wish to. If I go first, it is likely he will get his way because I would never want to force him into doing anything that would cause him distress. However, if he goes first, I will scrupulously observe his wishes for his own death and then ensure that my own are clearly and tidily set out.
Ideally, I would like to be dissected in my own dissecting room, but I accept that it might be unfair on my staff to have to undertake the embalming process. They are professionals, and I imagine they would be absolutely fine with it, especially if it was my express wish, but I wouldn’t want to risk upsetting any of them. However, I do want to be Thieled, and at present Dundee is the only place where this is possible. Becoming a formalin cadaver does not appeal and I absolutely refuse to be fresh/frozen. I like the idea of having that bit of extra flexibility to my limbs – probably more than they currently have – which Thiel provides and I would welcome the smoothing out of my wrinkles. And I’d be able to repose for a couple of months in the dark, cool waters of my submersion tank, enjoying a nice rest after all that dying nonsense. I wonder what aberrations in my anatomy will have some student somewhere cursing me one day, and whether I will be as good a teacher as Henry was to me.
Once everything has been dissected, I’d like my skeleton to be macerated (boiled to remove all the soft tissue and to get rid of the fat). I am happy for my soft tissue and organs to be cremated, though they won’t leave much in the way of ash for my children to scatter. I have other plans for my bones. I want them to be stored in a box in the skeletal teaching collection at Dundee University. I will leave a full history of identifying features – injuries, pathology and so on – that can be related back to them. I would be just as delighted to be articulated and hung up in the dissecting room, or in our forensic anthropology teaching lab, so that I can continue to teach there long after I have stopped functioning. As bones have a very long shelf life, I could be hanging around for centuries, whether my students like it or not.
If I achieve my aim, I will never really die, because I will live on in the minds of those who learn anatomy and fall in love with its beauty and logic, just as I did. This is the kind of immortality we can all aspire to achieve in our own spheres. I would have no desire to live on in corporeal form for ever, even if I believed it were possible.
Some choose to reject the inevitability of complete death. Many are convinced that their soul, spirit or the essence of their identity will live on in some way, on earth or in their concept of heaven, despite the expiry of their body. Others believe their spirit will one day be reunited with its own body. Or, in the case of those who embrace the idea of reincarnation, in somebody else’s. There are even a few people who have their bodies cryogenically frozen, until such time as medical science works out how to bring them back to life again just as they were before. None of this is for me.
Is there life after death? Who knows. And are there such things as ghosts? My superstitious grandmother would certainly have said so but, having spent much of my life around the dead, I can categorically state that no dead body has ever hurt me, and rarely has one offended me. The dead are not unruly, but generally very well behaved and polite. None of them has ever come back to life in my mortuary and they certainly do not haunt my dreams. All in all, the dead are a whole lot less trouble than the living. There is only one way to discover the truth about dying, death and being dead, and that is to do it, which we will all get round to eventually. I only hope I am ready and have my bag packed for the big adventure.
What does my heaven look like? Let’s lose the angels and the harps – how irritating they would be. My heaven is peace, silence, memories and warmth.
And my hell? Lawyers, blue wires and rats.
THE MAN FROM BALMORE
Please contact Missing Persons at missingpersonsbureau@nca.x.gsi.gov.uk if you believe you have information that may help to identify the young man whose story is told in Chapter 8. A case history is available on http://missingpersons.police.uk/en/case/11-007783
DESCRIPTION OF REMAINS
Remains found: 16 October 2011. Likely to have been there for between 6 and 9 months
Location: Woodland near Golf Course Road, Balmore, East Dunbartonshire
Sex: Male
Age: Between 25 and 34
Ancestry: Northern European; fair hair
Height: Between 1.77m and 1.83m (5ft 8ins and 6ft)
Build: Slight frame
Distinctive characteristics: Injuries that may have affected his appearance: healed broken nose, which might have been visibly crooked; partly healed serious fracture of the jaw; chipped upper front tooth. Possible difficulty walking
CLOTHING
POLO SHIRT: Light blue, short sleeves, V-neck. White printed design of text and stamps covering the whole of the front.Dark-coloured integrated diagonal strip from the right top shoulder to the left hem
Brand: Topman. Widely available in the UK
Size: Small, Euro size 48; chest size 35-37
Fabric: 100% cotton
Manufacture and other labelling: Made in Mauritius. Label contains numbers with the sequences 2224278117026 and 71J27MBLE
CARDIGAN: Dark blue, long sleeves, crew neck, front zip, side pockets. Two horizontal stripes on collar and at top of pockets. ‘SOUTHERN CREEK PENNSYLVANIA’ embroidered on left breast above white crown, lion and the letters ‘G’ and ‘J’. ‘RIVIERA ADVENTURE’ logo underneath
Brand: Max. Apparently traded only in the Middle East
Size: Small
Fabric: 100% cotton
Manufacture: Made in Bangladesh
JEANS: Denim, button fly
Brand: Petroleum. This brand offered both an ‘essentials’ range (Petroleum ‘68) and young fashion (Petroleum ‘79) at affordable prices in the UK. Sold in the UK exclusively at Officers Club, Petroleum stores and online
Size: 30L
Fabric: 78% cotton, 22% polyester
Other labelling: Petroleum, ‘Don’t blame me I only work here’
BRIEFS: Coloured boxers, red elastic waistband printed continuously with ‘Urban Spirit’
Brand: Urban Spirit is a medium-priced brand commonly sold in the UK
TRAINERS: Laced, black and grey, red sole. ‘Shock X’ on side. ‘Rubber grip’, ‘Flex Area’, ‘Performance’ and ‘Brake’ imprinted on sole
Brand: Some research suggests the logo is registered to the German brand Crivit Sports, which was sold widely in Lidl and other budget stores
Size: 45/11
Fabric: 100% polyester
SOCKS: Nondescript, dark-coloured ankle socks
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Reflecting on a lifetime of events always carries the risk of missing out someone terribly important and inadvertently causing offence. So I will simply thank every precious companion who has travelled with me on life’s bus. Some were there for a stop or two; others have gone the entire distance alongside me. And what a road trip we have had. I don’t need to reel off your names because you know who you are, and you know in your hearts how much you mean to me. I treasure your company, your friendship, your wisdom and your k
indness.
If I have forgotten something, or have perhaps told a story not quite as you remember it, forgive me. And if our experiences together are not recalled on these pages, it may be because I feel they are too personal to share, or that there is insufficient space to do them justice. I take full responsibility for my failings.
While my life rolls on, the production of this book has been finite and I would like to thank those who have been endlessly patient with me, so encouraging, refreshingly honest and supportive.
Michael Alcock, above all others, has shown the patience of a saint. Having first listened to my ramblings over twenty years ago, he has finally seen something appear in print. I am very lucky to have found him and I adore him.
Caroline North McIlvanney knows better than anybody else that I have no words to thank her adequately for the Herculean task she accepted and then executed with such sensitivity and grace.
And Susanna Wadeson was inordinately brave to take on an amateur writer she heard speaking at a conference. She has been the most inspirational, comforting, reassuring and firm guide throughout this adventure. Without her, this project would never have come to fruition and my family are indebted to her for enabling these stories to be told. She is truly remarkable.
My sincere thanks are due, too, to Patsy Irwin (publicity director), Geraldine Ellison (production manager), Phil Lord for the page design and Richard Shailer for the jacket design.
Finally, I wish to extend my respects to the unidentified man represented on the front cover of this book. He has no name because he is a construct of Richard’s immense artistic talent. But even he can be brought to life – just a little. We know he is male from the acute angle of his sub-pubic concavity, the shape of the pelvic inlet, the relative size of the alae to the body width of the sacrum, the triangular shape of the pubic bone and the acute morphology of the greater sciatic notch. He is over twenty-five because the bodies of S1 and S2 have fused, as have his iliac crest epiphyses. He is likely to be under thirty-five, since there is no evidence of osteophytic lipping on the ventral margins of his lumbar vertebrae and no obvious calcification into the costal cartilages.
Talk about showing off.
PICTURE CREDITS
Facial reconstructions of Rosemarkie Man (here) and the man from Balmore (here) are reproduced courtesy of Dr Chris Rynn.
The photograph of Sue in Kosovo (here) was taken by David Gross.
The cartoon (here) is by Zebedee Helm.
The portrait of Sue (here) is by Janice Aitken.
Photographs of the man from Balmore’s clothing (here) were taken by Dr Jan Bikker.
All other illustrations are from Sue’s own collection.
INDEX
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
Page numbers in italics refer to pages with illustrations
Aberdeen University, 15, 28, 120
Aberfan, 269–72, 275
Adipocere (grave wax), 47–8
afterlife, belief in, 4, 76, 338–9
age: assessment in the living, 183; documentary proof of, 182–3; donors, 105; identifying, 179–84; likely age at death, 8–10
ageing, 40–1
Alda, Alan, 294
algor mortis, 42–3
anatomy: HM inspector for, 112–13, 266, 318, 324; legislation, 24, 131, 310–11, 312, 324; study of, 16–23, 307, 309–11; teaching, 278–9, 325
Anatomy Act (1832), 24, 131, 310, 324
ancestry, identifying, 187–8
Anderson, Moira, 156–66
Arbour, Louise, 233
archaeological specimens, 118–19
Arthur (bequeather), 106, 109–16, 334
Ashdown, Paddy, 257
ashes, 100, 102–3, 127, 137, 139
Bacon, Francis, 70, 277
bacteria, 41–2, 45
Baldock skeletons, 132–3, 176
Balmore, man from, 167, 193–6, 340–1
Barclay, John, 131
Barrie, J. M., 327
Beaker culture, 121, 136
Bela Cervka, 245–7
bereavement theory, 96–7
Bikker, Jan, 162, 194
Billingham, Mark, 320
Black, Anna (author’s daughter): birth, 333; career, 123–4; character, 87; childhood, 234; grandfather’s death, 92, 101; grandmother’s death, 87; present for grandfather, 332; school dance, 296–7
Black, Grace (author’s daughter): career, 83–4, 90; character, 83–4; childhood, 234; grandfather’s death, 92–3; grandmother’s death, 83–4, 87; present for grandfather, 332–3
Black, Tom (author’s husband): daughter’s school dance, 296; father-in-law’s death, 92; father-in-law’s dementia, 88–9; mother-in-law’s death, 86; parents, 78; relationship with author, 234, 243, 247–8, 256, 257, 282, 337
Blair, Tony, 256–7
blood: cessation of flow, 20, 66; groups, 129, 150; Guthrie tests, 190; jam made from human, 123; settling after death, 42, 44; vessels, 18, 22, 129, 204, 302
blowflies, 45–6
bodies: disposal, 122–3, 198–200, see also dismemberment; dissolving, 206; importing body parts, 312; halting of decomposition, 47, 128; preservation for dissection, 25–6, 311–15; simulated breathing, 317–18; simulated pulse, 317; unidentified, 33, 52, 143, 168–9
body farms (human taphonomic facilities), 48
body-snatchers (resurrectionists), 24, 131, 310, 311
‘bog bodies’, 128–9
bones: bone-muscle equation, 178; cutting through, 201–3, 211–12; development of human skeleton, 279–80; DNA analysis, 190, 243; establishing age from, 179–84; establishing height from, 186–7; establishing sex from, 177–9; fusion, 181–2; identification from human, 120–1, 146; skeletonisation, 46–7; trauma analysis, 134–5
brain, 37, 41, 71
‘Brienzi’, 48
Brown, Sandra, 157–61, 164–5
burial: Aberfan, 271; author’s father, 3, 100–2, 162; cost, 103; family plots, 162; ground, 122, 124; Kosovo, 244, 245; legislation, 124–5; nineteenth-century, 137–9; polluting effects, 126; sites, 124; space, 124–5; Tibetan, 96, 122
Burial Act (1857), 124
Burke and Hare, 24, 310, 311
Bury, William, 207
butcher’s shop, 14–15, 313–4
Butler, Samuel, 61
Campbell, DCI Pat, 161
cannibalism, 123–4, 208
catacombs, 125
cells: blood, 35, 44, 302; DNA in, 53, 190; life cycle, 34–6, 40–1; muscle, 38, 43; nerve, 36–7; otic capsule, 37–40; putrefaction, 45; skin, 35, 204; types, 35, 36
cemeteries, 98, 124
Chapman, Jessica, 157
Chesney, Everilda, 138–9
Chesney, General Francis Rawdon, 136–40
Child, Lee, 320
children: identifying age, 180–4; identifying sex, 172–4; Kosovan victims, 246, 248–50; missing, 54, 147–9; sexual abuse, 298–9, 305–6
Churchill, Lady Randolph, 206
Clarke, Lord Justice Kenneth, 272, 273, 274
Coben, Harlan, 320
coffins, 137–8, 162
confirmation bias, 227
Cook, Robin, 242–3
Corstorphine Hill, female remains, 190
courtroom, 219–20
Cousins, Norman, 1, 329, 331
Covey, Stephen, 167
cremation, 102, 126–7
Crimewatch (BBC), 57
‘Crossbones Girl’, 132
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), 216
Cunningham, Craig, 162, 194
Dalmagarry Quarry, 141, 151–5
Dangi, Chandra Bahadur, 185
Day, Anna, 265
Day, Michael, 278
death: author’s attitude to, 331–2, 336–9; author’s attitude to dying, 332–6; euphemisms for, 3; fear of, 69–70; life a
fter, 76, 338; media reporting, 227–8; medico-legal definition, 41; near-death experiences, 70–1; organismal, 41; personification, 2–3, 10–11; religious views of, 4, 108, 208; stages of postmortem alteration, 42–7; time of, 42; unit of risk of, 330–1
The Death Ship (B. Traven), 59
Deaver, Jeffery, 320
decay, active and advanced, 46
decomposition: human composting, 128; liquor, 137, 168–9; odours, 45, 152, 154, 261; rate, 47, 249, 259–60; stages, 43, 46; studying process, 48
dementia, 63, 87–8, 89–90, 94
dental records, 56–7, 58, 191–2
desecration of corpses, 123–4
Developmental Juvenile Osteology, 279–80, 287
diet, 38–40
Disaster Victim Identification (DVI): process, 254, 263–5, 273; training, 253, 263, 265–9, 274, 304; UK response capability, 256–9, 262–3, 276
dismemberment: accidental, 198; aggressive, 207; communication, 208; criminal, 198, 200–3; defensive, 200–1, 203, 206, 221; imported body parts, 312; ‘jigsaw murder’, 209–19; McCluskie case, 197, 220–4; necromanic, 208; offensive, 207; reasons for, 198; scattering of body parts, 209–19; tool-mark analysis, 212
dissection: full body, 309; postmortem identification, 175; study of anatomy, 16–23, 120, 307, 318; watching, 111–16
DNA: databases, 55, 56, 58, 170, 189, 191, 209–10; establishing identity, 53–4, 57–8, 146, 159, 170, 175, 188, 220, 243–4; establishing TDI, 45; Guthrie cards, 190; profiling, 193, 273, 298; survival, 138
dogs, cadaver, 45
donors, anatomy: age, 105, 113; author’s first dissection, 16–17; bequeathal process, 103–5, 323; Book of Remembrance, 103, 105, 113; importance of, 23, 24, 323–4; inquiries, 103; legislation, 24, 324; memorial service, 113, 266; motives, 103, 106, 308–9; prospective, 112–13; views of relatives, 102–3, 104–5, 309
Dundee University: anatomy department, 103, 130–1, 278; anatomy teaching, 309, 318, 325; bequeathal manager, 103–5, 110, 321; Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, 133, 193, 200, 298, 324–5; chaplain, 4; donors, 105, 309, 321–4; mortuary, 318–19, 337; police training, 263, 265, 304
Dunleavy, Phyllis, 190
Dunlop, Donald, 308–9