work]; there was two blacksmiths here. Old Martin the Blacksmith and Tan Larrabee . Them was the real blacksmiths. [My father] was a carpenter by trade and he started making caskets for the people at the time. Then he increased on. He had just a little stock in, probably half a dozen or so. He started business in 1897. And then it creeped up, taking over. People advanced to him. Then, in the year I was born, 1907, he really started in business. I mean with a team of horses. Oh yeah, we farmed too. In the year I was born, 1907, my father started selling machinery for Frost and Wood. John Risdon was the man came down to start him off.... My father thought so much of him that when I was born he called me Angus Risdon , particularly after this fella. He was what they call a partial embalmer at the time when he was in it. He was at it 51 years. I was a full-fledged embalmer. I was in business with him just from the time I was about 15.... That's about 58 years ago. That's pretty young to be going. I remember going at 18, up where there was an old man done away with himself. He had hung himself in the barn loft, in other words. And Moore went up; he was the coroner. And a whole bunch of them [were there] and they were all scared to go up. I was only a kid then, and I went up -1 had an old smoke lantern - and I went up and I cut him [down]. He was a very light little fella. I took him under my arm and cut the rope; let him down. And after I done all that I was ignored then. They took over. It was a way of making a living. It was a job we always concealed to ourselves pretty well. It's something like a doctor's. I know I've been often asked questions and I just politely told them... I wasn't supposed to divulge too much. Or any, as far as that goes. Undertakers We used to prepare the body in the homes at that time. The old parlour was never used, only for that occasion usually. Oh, they had lovely places. I drove with the team as far as 42 miles in a day, down to Little Sands Church with a horse and the hearse. Leave home probably seven o'clock in the morning; get home at seven or eight o'clock at night. The roads at that time, they were sloppy; mud that deep in the spring of the year coming through Flat River . Some funerals'd be from here. They'd have them folding chairs; we'd set them around. It wasn't too bad. And a sound system. Anyone setting in the kitchen, they'd hear just as good. 176 BELFAST PEOPLE