I'm Ben Hannah, and I'm a grave digger

You don’t really set out to be a gravedigger. If you do, there’s something wrong with you. When I went for the job, my friend was a gravedigger here (at Springvale Botanical Cemetery) and I was packing shelves at Safeway, working 10pm until 6am. I was just fed up with that, I was becoming nocturnal.

I thought, ‘I’ll see how this goes for six or 12 months’. Almost 22 years later, I’m still here.

Hollywood portrays gravediggers as weird people who do weird things. But the people in this industry are some of the funniest people I’ve met. They counter the serious side with humour; it’s a kind of coping mechanism. They’re really quality people.

I couldn’t tell you how many gravesites I’ve done over the years; it would be thousands and thousands. We probably average eight a day.

There’s generally 12 full-time gravediggers here at Springvale, split up into two crews. We work at nine sites, including Melbourne General Cemetery, Brighton and St Kilda. It can be tough work, but it’s more about the elements – we’re out there rain, hail or shine. I really like working outside, I don’t mind the weather.

We dig for size, and it depends on the size of the coffin or the casket and whether the grave is for one, two or three people. We set them up, and backfill once the service is complete. We do three different depths: five, seven and nine feet.

We’ve got a five-tonne excavator here at the site, it’s actually got a fair bit easier. But sometimes the excavator won’t fit down narrow paths, so we’re still doing hand digs and still doing heavy lifting, and a lot of shovelling. It does take its toll with sore wrists, shoulders and backs. You’re constantly going down ladders and we’re in and out of graves.

I had a grave collapse years ago on a trainee. He was fine but it gives you the willies. The rules have changed in the last five or 10 years – we still get in all the time but now the grave has to have shoring.

We provide a service at a tough time. We try to sit out of sight when the funeral’s happening. Most people would never even see us.

Everyone’s going to die eventually, so I don’t think much about it myself any more.

Your team makes a massive difference – who you surround yourself with – because it is a fairly ordinary job. We’re all mates.

• As told to Larissa Ham