I’m delighted to introduce you to Joe Mace, Celebrant based in Cheshire. Joe completed both our Funeral and Wedding one-to-one training with me and it was such a joy. He admitted to me that he was concerned that being 60 might prevent him from launching a new career, but it was clear to me from our first session, that it is his life experience that will make his so exceptional. Joe has remarkable writing and listening skills and he’s going to create ceremonies that people connect with, are moved by and will always remember.
What made you think about becoming a Celebrant?
Joe Mace Celebrant: A friend of mine from university, herself a teacher, had decided to take early retirement and re-train to be a celebrant. I hadn’t seen her for a long time and learnt about her life change on FaceBook. She was having such a fantastic time, conducting weddings all over the place, that I decided to get in touch and quiz her about maybe doing the same. After being put in touch with a couple of celebrants local to me who kindly let me shadow them, I decided to take the plunge, and it was then that Dinah was recommended to me.
You took our Funeral and Wedding Celebrant training courses. Why did you decide to both and were they what you expected?
Joe Mace Celebrant: When I stopped teaching, I didn’t want to retire despite being at the age when I could. I felt like doing something that would help people, either at a time of great anguish or great joy. One of the celebrants I’d been shadowing preferred funerals; the other, weddings. They both convinced me of the merits of each… but I wanted to do both.
All in all, I was very happy I’d decided to do both courses. I certainly learnt some unexpected things during my training, especially in the Funerals course. I had no idea that you could drive your loved-one’s body to a service in your own car for example, or that you could keep it at home in the first place.
Tell us about what your previous roles have been and the transferable skills that you felt helped you as you moved into your Celebrant role.
Joe Mace Celebrant: Originally, after leaving university, I worked in Television. I started as a VT Op and assistant editor at Sky News when it launched in 1989 and subsequently moved to GMTV when it launched in 1992. I had moved up the editing ranks by then and was senior editor at GMTV for the next 16 years. Working in TV was fantastic although, looking back, it seems like another world; someone else’s life in a way.
I met and worked with some very famous people over the years. I edited all sorts of programme content including news, celebrity interviews, travel, cookery, entertainment news, promos, kids’ TV, charity appeal films and (my favourite) fashion. Every year for ten years I went to the spring/summer and autumn/winter collections in Milan and Paris.
I met all the famous fashion designers and super-models of the day
And attended fashion shows including some very important ones, like Hubert de Givenchy’s last and John Galliano’s first (when he designed for Dior). For those trips I was what is called a Producer/Editor, taking reams and reams of show footage and interviews and editing them down to a couple of three-minute packages for the next day’s transmission.
Likewise, in this role I worked on GMTV’s charity appeal films, producing five 90 second films for each of five charities every year, including Rainbow House and Hearing Dogs for the Deaf. This would involve condensing maybe three hours of interview material down to one and a half minutes that managed to tell the story and move people enough to pick up the phone to pledge money. I think this is probably the most important transferable skill I possess; taking a mass of important information about a loved-one from any number of disparate people condensing it to a half hour script that manages to tell their story in an entertaining way but that is compassionate, moving and sensitive.
After twenty years in the telly business, I re-trained as a teacher.
I really wanted to help sixth form and college students realise their own dreams of working in the media. Over the 12 years I taught, several of my students went on to university and then to Media City in Salford as well as to other media jobs. I was also heavily involved with things extra-curricular, especially music and theatre, both of which took us to the Edinburgh Festival a couple of times (I was in a production of ‘Posh’ by Laura Wade).
The transferable skills I can take from this period of my life include, obviously, public speaking but also compassion, empathy and patience. Part of my remit was the pastoral care, helping teenagers cope with all manner of ‘stuff’ going on in their lives, including deaths of family and, sadly too often, friends.
What was your favourite thing about your Celebrant training?
Joe Mace Celebrant: Working with Dinah was very special. I instantly knew we would get on; we have a lot in common. I’m an auditory and kinaesthetic learner… so listening and doing! Dinah is very good at explaining things and at answering questions. I enjoyed our sessions together; I learnt a lot just from talking with her. I also enjoyed the assignments, especially writing the scripts. Again, Dinah is very encouraging and gives constructive criticism which I liked.
What kind of ceremony are you most looking forward to creating?
Joe Mace Celebrant: I suppose I’m most looking forward to working with those who want to express their love for each other, whether that’s a wedding or a vow-renewal or a commitment ceremony. I’d like to work with LGBTQ+ clients in particular. I have friends and family in that community and everybody I’ve met through them has been so lovely, creative, kind and positive. I find being around them very uplifting.
You told me that you’d been initially concerned about re-training at 60. Now that you’ve completed the training, how do you feel about starting your new business?
Joe Mace Celebrant: I’m filled with trepidation to be honest. I’m really glad that I’ve re-trained. My age was never the issue there, but now I’ve started the business I’m acutely aware of how much of a waiting game it is initially. It’s such a Catch 22 situation at the start; those first few jobs to encourage that word-of-mouth reputation are, at the moment, elusive. I may not have established my reputation and be attracting regular custom for some time to come yet and that is quite a scary prospect.
Tell me five things about Joe, the person, rather than the Celebrant.
My ideal holiday centres around two things – Art galleries and food
I’m obsessed with both. I particularly love Art from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards (although I do like a bit of Flemish: Rembrandt, Vermeer etc) and I have a real affinity with portraiture. I specialised in it for my degree at university and that is when I fell in love with John Singer Sargent. Other passions of mine are sculpture, so Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth are two further heroes, and the St Ives School: Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, Terry Frost and Patrick Heron to rattle off a few. But point me in the direction of any Art gallery, especially whilst on holiday, and I’ll happily immerse myself in it for several hours.
And then there’s food. I am a foodie, both cooking it and eating it.
I’m a true omnivore; I will eat anything. What I like to do on holiday, is have the local peasant dishes which usually consist of offal. I’m a sucker for tripe in particular. Cooked properly, like they do in Andalusia for example, it really is a treat. I adore fish and seafood in particular and I often say I could probably give up meat but could never give up fish. Cooking for other people is something I love doing. I think it’s a very potent expression of love and I relish entertaining friends or having my kids come home for some of dad’s efforts; and I do try.
I love music.
To my detriment I cannot play an instrument, but I can sing. I was lucky enough to go to a school in London that had an exceptional choir of such a high standard we used to deputise for resting Cathedral choirs. I have sung evensong in Cathedrals all over the south of England, from Peterborough down to Wells and Coventry down to Bury St Edmunds. I’ve even sung in St Paul’s Cathedral… twice! I trained as a countertenor (a male alto) and after I moved up to Cheshire, sang renaissance and baroque songs, with a guitar-playing friend of mine, in venues like Ford Green Hall and at the Chester Arts Festival.
I love my dog.
One of my first memories is from when I was three years old. My Uncle Frank had a gorgeous black Labrador Retriever whose name was Bella. I absolutely adored that dog, and when we visited, Bella and I were inseparable. As a child, I used to watch an old French-language serial on children’s television called ‘Belle and Sebastian’ about a boy and his huge mountain dog on the Swiss/Italian border. It mirrored so beautifully my relationship with Bella and, ever since, I have romantically dreamt of one day owning my own gentle giant with whom I could off on similar frolics and adventures. And now, fifty-odd years later, I have my own Bella (who I often call Belle in tribute to my small-screen hero) a black Labrador Retriever, the image of my old friend. She is my world.