From rags to riches
Whether or not funerals are too expensive depends on how much money you’ve got and how you like to spend it. Some like to say it with a Batesville casket, mountains of flowers, a fleet of vintage Bentleys, prancing horses, a military band, the Red Arrows—the sky’s the limit. If you’ve got lots of dough […]
Short change
A series of shorts, today. Each is probably worth a post in its own right, but if I don’t get them off my chest now tomorrow will come and they will lie unremembered. First, an interesting editorial in this month’s Funeral Service Journal, the UK’s Dismal Trade mag. It observes that “the spirit of entrepreneurship […]
The good, the bad and the ugly
I was pretty rude last week about AB Walker and Son. Having been so, I fired off an email to Julian Walker offering a platform for a riposte. Within a few days I had a reply. It was a cheery reply, a generous reply: the reply of a man who is confident but not at […]
Letters pray
I enjoyed a long chat with Ieuan Rees this morning about a logo I want him to design for me. He’s a lettercutter, a calligrapher and a sculptor. In case you’ve never heard of him, he is a major celeb in his field. I have long admired him and I am not ashamed to admit […]
Pomp your funeral
There’s nothing like a good funeral procession, a walking funeral procession. It’s a much underestimated component of a good funeral. Regrettably, most people do not bother to have one at all, these days. Only the famous and those who stand for something get proper cortege. And Romanies, of course; they still know how to do […]
Co-operative Funeralcare and the GMB: a response
Here is a response from Phil Edwards, Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, to the stance which The Good Funeral Guide has taken on Co-operative Funeralcare’s derecognition of the GMB union, which I reproduce unmediated. You should read it together with the statement by the GMB. Dear Mr Cowling, Thank you for the opportunity […]
Death is on everyone’s lips
There’s an interesting piece in Monday’s Guardian by Madeliene Bunting examining the current popular appetite for death, and its focus on, inter alia, Jade Goody, Ivan Cameron, Wendy Richard, and Peter and Penny Duff, who killed themselves in Switzerland. For a full fortnight, it seems, every frontpage story in the Sun was about death. Ms […]
Free radicals
A waft of spring gets the blood coursing, makes your toes wiggle. It’s time to peep out of the burrow and see what’s up. I’ll tell you what’s up. Transitus is having a get together at Bowden House just outside Totnes. It’ll take a full three hours to get there, but it’s M5 almost all […]
Brummie rebel
When the present looks awful we seek refuge in the past. We fix on a time when we would have been safe. Is that why, when someone dies, we look for an undertaker who still dresses as he did in 1873? Maybe. There’s a lot of call for it. And Brits have a weakness for […]
A statement to the Good Funeral Guide from the GMB
The co-operative movement has a history to be proud of. Founded by working people for working people, its principles were formulated by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844. Given its origins, it makes you blink and/or howl with disbelief to learn that Co-operative Funeralcare, the People’s Undertaker, has derecognised a trade union, the GMB. This seems […]
