Peter Goers, SA’s newest angel of death reads the expansive death notices and learns so much about the dearly departed

Once avoiding reading the death notices like a plague, now Peter Goers considers himself the ‘angel of death’ in his volunteer role.

I never used to read death notices because they’re a slippery pole. Once you start reading them you end up in them. However, since the beginning of 2024 I volunteer at Vision Australia Radio for blind and vision-impaired listeners (among others) and my weekly task is to read the expansive death notices from Saturday’s The Advertiser every Monday morning.

I’m the angel of death and sad as it often is, I love this gig because I learn so much and get to pay tribute to all.

Peter Goers, SA’s newest angel of death reads the expansive death notices and learns so much about the dearly departed.

I have to edit as I read and I give name, dates of birth and/or age, anything especially notable – and I often read the names of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and lots of people, incredibly, have great-great-grandchildren.

We live longer and every week there are at least two centenarians and one dear lady had a great-great-great-grandchild. One lady had 56 grandchildren and great- and great-great grandchildren. How did she remember all their names?

Names, and the trends of name, fascinate. So far I’ve collected nine spellings of one name – Taylor, Taylah, Taiyler, Taaylaa, Tayyllah, Tayla, Tailah, Tayler and Taylar.

Lives are dates and family and perhaps that, after all, is what matters most. Death is inevitable but when, where, why and how are the questions. Oddly, in death notices, people rarely die. They “pass”, “pass on”, “pass over”, “depart” or they are “lost” or “gathered” and are often “safe in the arms of Jesus”, which must be comforting.

My favourite euphemism for death is that so beautifully used by the Salvos, “promoted to glory”. How wonderful.

Every one in death notices dies “peacefully”. No one rages against the dying of the light. Death is the most private thing we can achieve yet everyone seems to die “surrounded by family”. Death dissolves everything.

Former US president Jimmy Carter makes Goer’s hot list, and not for his presidency. (Photo by Adalberto ROQUE / AFP)

Of the dead, speak only good, though sometimes you can say, “so and so is dead. Good!” I jest. A death notice is life’s full stop. We read them and fill in the gaps because the unique and important facts of anyone’s life are the beginning and the end. The rest we all share – struggle, success, failure, joy.

Death notices are public and historic record. And formal in style in an age that needs all the formality it can get. It is sometimes all we know of a person especially since birth and marriage notices (the old hatch, match) records have lost currency, so we are left with dispatch.

I enjoy reading of a person’s associations and the Freemasons and the Retired Police Officers Association are faithfully and admirably assiduous in memorialising their own.

Almost every week, I know or know of someone dead and I mourn them.

Brevity is not just the soul of wit but the soul of the death notice and there is a poetry to them – “In her 100th year. Loved wife of Bert” and the beautiful and telling “Working man at rest”.

My favourite death notice was exquisite in its formality, gratitude and fondness. The notice for Constance Melba Robinson “Connie” 1934-24 noted, proudly, that she was “Former employee of Coles women’s wear section in Rundle Mall”. I love that and I wished I’d known that dear lady.

We all die – hopefully later rather than sooner and death is often just around the coroner and there should always be a final notice.

At the very least, we owe our dead the dignity of notice.

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