IT IS SAFE TO SAY that when one thinks about a great career, never does digging holes for long hours or dealing with the dead come to mind.
In fact, one would hardly see students in long queues at any career showcase desirous of entering a career field with the aforementioned job description.
But even though gravediggers may not be on the cutting edge of what society terms the ideal job – it’s not even a popular choice for many in the funeral profession – those attending any funeral know that these people play a most crucial role.
They require tact, skill and emotional sensitivity. That’s why if you ask Michael Hoyte to name who, when and where in the Bushy Park Cemetery in St Philip he “put down”, he could easily pinpoint them.
For him, digging graves wasn’t a field he fell into because he couldn’t find anything “better” to do. Hoyte takes pride and joy in his career because it was his first vocation of choice. 
Growing up, all Hoyte, originally from Waterford Housing Area, St Michael, wanted was to become a gravedigger. Yes – a soil technician.
So much so that he would visit cemeteries across the island, particularly those at which his older brothers Curtis and David Hoyte worked, and sit for hours on end simply waiting for the day to come when he could do the same.
It may sound weird to a few people, but Hoyte explained that the cemetery was where he felt most at home. It was almost a sanctuary.
“I would just watch my brother dig and watch other grave diggers, so I just tell myself I want one of those jobs.”
In 1983 after working for some years as a gardener at the National Conservation Commission, he finally got his wish. And for more than two decades now he has been the sole gravedigger at the Bushy Park cemetery.
According to him, he has dug thousands of graves.
“I just like my job. I can’t really explain it, but I really like what I do,” he declared.
Wearing a small cap to block the rays of the scorching midday sun from his eyes, and with drops of sweat falling from his forehead, Hoyte dug a virgin grave, using a peck and a drill.
Adjusting a thick leather back brace, he exclaimed that soil technics was much harder work than it appeared.
“It is the hardest work you would see,” Hoyte said as he pointed to a pile of soil taken for the newly-dug hole.
“The bending down is the thing that does humbug me sometimes; I know guys who does cry out for their backs.
“Don’t mind some people might think this is an easy job; it isn’t. When you getting into this type of work you got to put your mind there to it, otherwise you will forget all about it and go along ’bout your business.
“I can dig three or four graves in the week as long as work come in. I don’t ever use a jackhammer, so you know it is really hard work.
“I am in good shape. I eat barley and oats and those kinds of things,” he added.
Not only was soil technics a back-breaking job but the 62-year-old father of seven maintained that one had to be strong mentally to survive it.
There are two types of graves: virgin and reopening. In the latter sometimes diggers will find remains.
“My first time, I didn’t let it scare me much but my belly turn a bit . . . but then I get in it and get accustomed to it,” he recalled.
Unlike some who claim that they have seen duppies, Hoyte doesn’t believe in that “foolishness”. In fact, he isn’t scared to be among the dead.
“You feel if that was true I would be able to watch going on 32 years – if it used to humbug me like that?” he quipped.
Hoyte has a little over a year to go before retirement.
“If nothing ain’t wrong with me, if I ain’t sick, I will continue to work ’til the Lord ready for me,” he vowed. (SDB Media)
