Horse drawn hearse, Stanford-le-Hope, 2016

After my recording assignment at DP World, I thought I’d pop in to Stanford-le-Hope and get a bite to eat for lunch. Whilst in the King Street Bakery a horse drawn hearse went by outside, beautifully black and graceful. The lady and I had a short conversation about not seeing those very often, and I was disappointed that I hadn’t sat down on the bench opposite (with recorder) a few minutes earlier, but such is the way of things.

So after my egg and bacon roll and apple turnover, I drove round the corner into the High Street and saw the very same hearse parked outside L E Brand and Sons funeral directors. I immediately parked again and went to have a chat with the suited fellows, who agreed that it was ok to record them shortly as they made their way up the road.

In the recording you can hear a few cars pass by, then in the gap created by the funeral procession (approx. 2m 10s in) an elderly lady passing by with her zimmer frame before the funeral car and horse drawn hearse. In fact there was such a queue of slow traffic behind it the lady waited for ages but nobody let her cross the road, so after asking her if that’s what she wanted to do, I signalled for someone to wait and we both crossed to safety on the other side.