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Airdate: Britain’s Youngest Undertaker

Who would want to be an undertaker at the age of just 16? Meet Rachael Ryan.

Who would want to be an undertaker?

In the doco Britain’s Youngest Undertaker, UK’s Rachael Ryan is just 16 years old and already working in the family business of death.

In the city of Newport in Wales, a 15-year-old schoolgirl is about to pass from a world of classrooms to one of caskets and coffins – dealing with death on a daily basis. This revealing documentary follows Rachael Ryan as she turns 16 and becomes Britain’s youngest female undertaker.

Dad Mike runs the family firm and hopes one day to pass the business on to Rachael and her sister Louise. Can Rachael be sure that a life of death is her destiny?

Over summer, Rachael will start her three month probation as a funeral director and during this time she will learn every aspect of the funeral trade, from stocktaking coffins, helping to organise funerals, to being present at an embalming and dressing the deceased. It’s a steep learning curve. Outside work Rachael likes seeing her friends, singing, riding horses and going out on her new yellow moped.

Overseeing Rachael’s work is her older sister Louise. She’s 22 and used to work in banking before she joined the family firm. Now she lives above the funeral parlour and also runs her own business which supplies memorial stones.

But working with your father can be difficult, especially when you are 16 and don’t like being told what to do, as is the case with Rachael. Will she embrace the family business?

8:30pm Wednesday, 18 April ABC2.

One Response

  1. I grew up in a small country town. Where the local hardware store was also a funeral home. My eldest brother used to have to go and collect bodies from homes or car accidents etc.
    I was 13 and use to go for ride alongs with him if he had a after hours “pick up” He would give me $20. I think he did this because of the rumours of the pick up van being haunted.

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