Good Funeral Guide

Exit strategy

2010-03-11T10:38:00.002Z

It seems unthinkable that the practice of direct cremation, direct burial – the rapid and unceremonious disposal of the dead – could land on our shores. It’s been preying on my mind. Now I’m not so sure.

Here’s a view from Rabbi Mark S Glickman writing in the Seattle Times about what he calls the “desire to de-emphasize or avoid focusing on death”:

My Aunt Margie died a few weeks ago. And now that she's gone, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I hadn't seen Aunt Margie very often for the past several years, but we were very close when I was a boy. She had a kind smile, she took genuine interest in our lives, and it was rumored that nations had gone to war just to get a piece of her famous chocolate roll. My brothers and I did, too.

Aunt Margie lived near San Francisco, and as her death approached, I began making plans to go to her funeral. I was attending a conference in Southern California. Maybe I could reroute my return trip through the Bay Area.

The call finally came when I was in Santa Monica, just before lunch. I was enjoying the warmth and the sunshine, but then my mother's name flashed onto my cellphone screen. Yes, Aunt Margie had died. The end was peaceful. In accordance with her wishes, there would be no burial rites. Her body would be cremated without ceremony.

No funeral? Not even a memorial service? But ... but ... she had just died! What was I supposed to do? I felt like I needed to do something about her death — to honor her, to memorialize her somehow. Was I supposed to just go on as if nothing had happened?

He concludes:

Judaism teaches that a spark of God burns within every human soul, and that, therefore, when a person dies, a part of God dies, too. The divine presence shrinks with the death of every human being.

In response, after a person dies, Jews recite the Kaddish, our prayer of mourning, in an attempt to restore God's presence to the world. "Yitgadal v'yitkadash shmei rabbah," it begins, "May God's great name be magnified and sanctified."

I won't presume to tell you how you should mourn your loved ones' deaths, or what preparations you should make for your own. I will, however, encourage you to remember that human life is awesome and mysterious; that a person's death is often sad and always significant; and that we mourn best when our actions reflect these great truths.

My dear Aunt Margie has died. The sun no longer shines quite as brightly as it used to. May God's great name be magnified and sanctified.

Read the entire piece here.

Robbing the dead while they're still alive

2010-03-10T14:39:00.003Z

Consumers are best served by people whose interests are their interests – people who want what their customers want. Ethics-driven natural burial ground operators are a good example. This is an equation, so it works the other way around.

There’s not much understanding of this in the funeral industry. There are shining exceptions, but their example is seldom spotlighted. I’m thinking here of a big business like AW Lymn which goes out of its way to trade transparently and join up arranging a funeral to conducting it. I am thinking of AB Walker, a business old enough and sufficiently well thought of not to give a stuff when this blog criticises it, but which extended the hand of friendship and listened to what I said with astonishing good cheer and magnanimity. I am thinking, too, of businesses like Bristol South Funeral Services whom I visited yesterday. They’re minnows, a new start-up. If people knew just how lovely they are, let me tell you, they’d be swamped.

Perhaps it is because the funeral industry has been subjected to so little consumer scrutiny that honour, ethics and excellence, unsung, have gone unrewarded. Result? Too many funeral directors have lost their consumer focus. They seem to be more interested in each other, actually. In the absence of healthy competition there is, often, morbid, rabid mutual loathing of an intensity which would surprise and revolt you. Where the best are not singled out for praise and reward by consumer advocates (I hope I’ll soon be joined by many others), open, healthy competition for market share can turn into a very nasty, underhand turf war in which the interests of consumers are confounded. Funeral directors are united by nothing so much as a perceived threat to their business. Here’s an example. The prospect of people conducting home funerals, if reckoned realistic, will, I’ll put my house on it, bring some local groups together like a bag of rats for just long enough to agree to deny these people any help. I shall highlight the first case as soon as I hear of it. Perhaps I just have.

The most egregious example of turf war at its most clamorous, ugly, bloody, nasty, underhand and atrocious is that of the marketing of funeral plans. The consumer hears nothing of the clamour, only the sweet siren songs of helpful plan providers playing both to the finer feelings of decent, thoughtful folk who want to die with everything in order, and to their terror of steeply rising costs (32.8 per cent in the last five years). There’s a big, big question mark over this latter claim. In the words of one of my correspondents, “If we look at the elements of a cremation, typically costing £2500 now, around 28-30% (£700) goes in cremation and doctors fees. So if the rest of the charges (due to the funeral director) go up by 3% pa (about the rate of inflation), for five years, that £1800 will rise to £2086. So for the Dignity prediction to be true, that funerals will cost £4,000 by 2015, that means the price of the cremation and doctors fees will have to rise to nearly £2000! This is clearly nonsense (or the reason why Dignity is buying crematoria!)”

The opening shots in this war were fired, I think, by the disgraced Service Corporation International (now, as the result of a management buyout, Dignity, and no longer scandal ridden). So effectively have Dignity and The Co-operative Group sold their plans and cornered future market share that consumer choice in the future is under the gravest threat. The independents are fighting back, but they can’t risk taking hits and already some are complaining that they are having to honour plans made 15 years ago for no profit. The winners will be the The Co-op and Dignity, whose prices are currently higher than most independents, who do not, generally, offer the same level of personal service and, in the case of The Co-operative, is gravely susceptible to negligence and malpractice.

Do these plans offer anything like value for money? In the words of my correspondent: “If you buy the Co-op plan over 5 years, the total cost of their mid plan rises from £2825 (already nearly £300 above the cost of an average funeral – the Golden Charter mid plan is £2549) to £3825 (another 6% + pa), so the customer is actually paying for the projected price rise themselves!”

Does an insurance scheme offer better value? We now hear of insurance companies who will pay out only to funeral directors who will bung them £250 first. There’s no shortage of scavengers picking the pockets of the dead.

Every funeral plan sold denies those responsible for arranging a funeral their choice of funeral director; every plan sold is a nail in the coffin of breadth of choice. What seems to be the consumer's friend is in fact the consumer's enemy.

If independent funeral directors were governed by the best interests of their clients they would call this war off – because there’s an equation at stake here. Instead, they are drumming up their own destruction. And they won’t stop, it’s too desperate and way beyond the reach of reason, neither will charities like Age Concern (Age Concern, for heavens’ sake!!) stop promoting the Dignity plan, until we can blow a whistle loud enough and show the world a better way to pay for a funeral.

My correspondent thinks this is a case for the OFT. I suspect that this is a cause better served by consumer education. You think?

Dido's lament

2010-03-09T17:01:00.003Z

Check this out. BBC Radio Four's Soul Music. All about Dido's lament. You've got seven days starting now!

Highlight is the Jeff Buckley version (above). An extraordinary interpretation.

Another great programme from a great show.

Looking like death

2010-03-08T19:07:00.003Z

Most people don’t reckon to look their best when they’re dead, but this was not how the status conscious citizens of Palermo in Italy saw it.

Starting in 1599 the Capuchin friars were mummified or embalmed, then displayed, standing, in the catacombs beneath their friary. The idea appealed to the wealthy citizens of Palermo, who clamoured to join them. Permission was granted and, over the centuries, their numbers grew and grew. The custom was only discontinued in the 1920s.

There to this day they stand or sit or lie, gathered according to profession, wearing the clothes they wore in life. They now constitute a fascinating record of social history – and an object of appalled fascination to goggling tourists.

Around 8,000 desiccated corpses gregariously survive in varying states of repair, their expressions altered over time, many of them now seeming silently to be singing in chorus, nattering, making merry or expostulating. One of the last to be entombed was a child, Rosalia Lombardo, who remains to this day touchingly well preserved.

There’s an excellent article by AA Gill here.

Be sure to see the photos which go with the piece here.

There’s more about Rosalia here.

There’s a melodramatic clip about Dario Piombino-Mascali, a palaeopathologist who is working hard to preserve Sicilies many mummies, here.

There's a website full of pictures plus some very good links here.

Lastly, here is a YouTube film, described by a commenter most appropriately as “sweetly macabre.”

Blackened greens?

2010-03-08T12:52:00.005Z

Is it just me or do you, too, feel that it seems like a long time ago since there was a consensus on climate change? I signed up to it because I met lots of people I liked and admired who had already subscribed and who read lots of books about it and quoted terrifying scenarios and insisted, “You must see this amazing thing on YouTube.”

I also signed up to it because I don’t understand science but I do trust scientists – in much he same spirit as Hugo Rifkind: “when I can’t be arsed properly to understand something, I tend to defer to those who can. I trust engineers to build bridges and I trust doctors to cure diseases. Likewise climatologists on man-made global warming. Most of them seem to believe in it. They might all be wrong, but they’re less likely to be wrong than I am. Call me a mindless stooge, but that’s good enough for me.”

Now, I guess, there are lots of us who are not so sure. There was the Climategate scandal: all those hacked emails which revealed, in the words of James Delingpole, “Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.” With this scandal came allegations that climate science is driven by a political agenda, post-normal science, which encourages its followers to suppose that it is quite all right to lie if the cause is noble. Again, Delingpole is the one who writes most attractively about this.

No wonder Peter Preston thinks we need an eco-prophet to galvanise us.

If people are going wobbly on climate change, I wonder how they’re feeling about this in the natural burial movement?

The Co-operative reports 21% increase in funeral plan sales

2010-03-06T20:21:00.003Z

No funeral director, however brilliant, can stimulate an appetite for their product – because we pass their way but once. But a funeral director can sign up tomorrow’s customers today by the ingenious means of selling them a pre-need funeral plan.

Pre-need plans look like a very good bet. They’re inflation-proof. And they are easy to sell. Just tweak people’s consciences by telling them that it’s a helpful and thoughtful thing to do for those who will be charged with disposing of you and you’ve got a win-win-win.

The Co-operative Group and Dignity, in particular, have done an incredibly good job of selling their pre-need plans. So much so that the independent sector is finding that tomorrow’s market increasingly belongs to these big conglomerates. As turf wars go, this one is looking very one-sided.

The more so with the Co-op’s proclamation on 5 March of a staggering 21 per cent growth in sales of pre-need plans in 2009. If I were an independent I’d be writing off my future.

Are pre-need plans the best way of paying for a funeral? I haven’t the financial literacy to work that out. I wonder if any reader of this blog has a view or, better still, an analysis.

What is certain is that consumer choice is under grave threat from funeral providers who, for the most part, cannot rival independents for personal service or value for money.

Read the incredibly depressing Co-op announcement here.

No service by request

2010-03-05T13:36:00.004Z

One more go at Canada’s Times Colonist. A rich seam, this.

There are 13 obits in the paper. Of those, 3 opt for no service; 3 opt for a celebration of life (I’m not sure exactly what that is, but at least one of them’s not a funeral); 4 opt for a memorial service; and just 3 opt for a funeral (all burials by the look of them). That means 8 out of 13 of these dead people will duck out of/be spared a conventional funeral. By UK standards, unthinkable.

There seem to be three reasons for the decline of the Canadian funeral.

First, older people (okay, seniors if you insist) move to retirement places and, uprooted from the place where, all their lives, they have done what was expected of them, feel disconnected from social conventions - fancy-free and free for anything.

Second, having moved to a retirement centre, these people suppose that there’ll be no one to come to their funeral.

Third, having been to awful funerals in the past, these (liberated, it has to be said) people reckon a funeral is not for them, so they specify: no service by request.

The local funeral director, McCall’s, is clearly so concerned by this that they have put a half-hour discussion of the no-funeral option on their website in the hope that people will reconsider.

In the UK we have retirement centres and more than enough experience of bleak and meaningless funerals.

So, why is it taking us so long to catch up?

Listen to the discussion on the McCalls site here: No Service By Request

The great reveller

2010-03-04T14:08:00.005Z

A Christian funeral proclaims the fierce, happy truth that ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’. As Christians see it, Sin corrupts and depraves, Death annihilates and nullifies. Both are the spawn of Satan, who is Evil, the mortal (lit) enemy of God who is Good and, the theology goes, the victor in the end. It’s pure Star Wars. Nice idea, good plot, great movie, but, for so many people, no more than that. To believe, for them, requires an impossible feat of suspended disbelief resulting in that narked, defiant expression non-believers wear at religious funerals. There’s a good example of this over at Carla’s blog, where she reflects feistily and funnily on resurrection: “my caregiver Alexa wanted to know if my new perfect body would have red hair and great tits because otherwise it would be a downgrade.”

Once you’ve established the certainty of rising in glory you can look death coolly in the eyes and see it clearly for the howling, sneering, brutal, destructive hooligan it is. If you can beat this mindless yob up, you’re obviously going to whoop a bit. Thus, St John Chrysostom:

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Saviour has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Resounding stuff. Intriguing tense change. And at least Christians implicitly recognise that the death of the body is potentially catastrophic, rendering living pointless.

What, then of those who cannot assure themselves of victory despite the knockdown on the deathbed? Is death, for them, defeat? Is having your body brought to a funeral like being paraded, accompanied by your shamed family and friends, as a vanquished captive at an emperor’s triumph? Can you make of this catastrophe something at least acceptable? Can you make it all right by calling death your friend? Well, we try, don’t we, with all that stuff about circles of life and leaves falling off an oak tree and death is nothing at all and I am not there I did not die and death is only an old door set in a garden wall; on quiet hinges it gives at dusk when thrushes call? Secular celebrants have gallons of this emollient balm to slap on.

For all these brave, naff words, twenty minutes at the crem looks to an observer like sullen surrender, a huddled duty-shuffle past the Old Enemy.

You can at least deny the Old Enemy this public humiliation by not having a funeral at all. I’m surprised more people don’t.

Click the pic to make it huge.

In praise of the lapidary epitaph

2010-03-04T12:01:00.002Z

lap·i·dar·y—adjective: characterized by an exactitude and extreme refinement that suggests gem cutting: a lapidary style; lapidary verse. Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of inscriptions on stone monuments.

I wandered over to the Times Colonist in Canada this morning. It’s a while since I’ve been. The obituaries are some of the best. They often embody a really nicely written epitaph – a lapidary epitaph. The sort of epitaph you find in English churches before the Victorians pumped in hot air and sonority. Jane Austen’s is as fine a model as you could find:

In Memory of JANE AUSTEN, youngest daughter of the late Revd GEORGE AUSTEN, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County. She departed this Life on the 18th of July 1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and the hopes of a Christian. The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection, they know their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her REDEEMER.

At the Times Colonist we find this in commemoration of STEPHENSON, Colin Patrick October 6, 1964 - February 21, 2010:

Living courageously, often defiantly, with HIV/AIDS for many years, Colin was a man whose imposing stature was matched by a huge heart. Known for being stubborn, opinionated, and a consummate devil's advocate, he will be remembered most for his sense of humor, his thoughtfulness and honesty, and above all his kindness, which he shared among a diverse network of friends, family and co-workers. All who met Colin were struck by his fierce independence, passion for fairness, and constant attention to friends and family. His was a life defined by caring for others. Predeceased by his father, Richard, he is survived by his mother, Ruth, his partner, Shawn, his sister, Jennifer, brothers Greg (Paivi) and Tim (Kathy), and aunts Joan (Jim), Prue (Jack), and Ruthie.

Numerous cousins, nephews, and nieces will miss his hugs and jokes. All will miss the warmth of his twinkling eyes, infectious laugh, and soft flannel shirts.

I’ve probably chosen the best of the crop. Read the rest here.

I was struck, as I read, by how many of these obits end by announcing there will be no funeral. It set me wondering... More matter for another blog post.

Dicky tikka

2010-03-03T12:32:00.003Z

THE proprietor of an Indian restaurant next-door to a proposed funeral parlour is concerned the development will turn diners off their pappadums and vindaloo.

We see a lot of stories like this revealing how disconnected death is from life. It's why the bereaved feel so disconnected from the living. If there is one truly superfluous ingredient of grief it has to be social embarrassment.

As to the good Mr Kumar (story above), I cannot resist the observation that a connecting corridor between his restaurant and the undertaker's might actually serve everyone's best interests. A cheap joke, I agree with you, but none the less giggly for that.

Love Life and Death in a Day

2010-03-03T11:04:00.002Z

My thanks to Andrew Plume for pointing me to this excellent documentary on Channel 4, Love, Life and Death in a Day. First broadcast in Feb '09 it follows births, marriages and funerals in Bristol on Midsummer's Day, and features Rachel and Liz of Bristol South Funeral Service, whom I am booked to go and see next week. It's a lovely piece of film-making. There's so much more to it than death. Hugely recommended. Watch it here.

Spooky

2010-03-03T10:24:00.002Z

Here's a synopsis for an upcoming movie, After.Life at imdb.com.

"After a horrific car accident, Anna (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find the local funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) preparing her body for her funeral. Confused, terrified, and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesnt believe shes dead, despite the funeral director's reassurances that she is merely in transition to the afterlife. Eliot convinces her he has the ability to communicate with the dead and is the only one who can help her. Trapped inside the funeral home, with nobody to turn to except Eliot, Anna is forced to face her deepest fears and accept her own death. But Anna's grief-stricken boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) still can't shake the nagging suspicion that Eliot isnt what he appears to be. As the funeral nears, Paul gets closer to unlocking the disturbing truth, but it could be too late; Anna may have already begun to cross over to the other side."

Here's the trailer:

What does grief feel like?

2010-03-02T10:35:00.002Z

In 2004 the crime writer and anti-fascist journalist Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack aged 50. His lifelong partner Eva Gabrielsson has written a book about him.

"It's about what it's like to lose someone like that, someone you've loved for so long. Everyone will encounter this [the shock of losing someone] sooner or later. I want to show what a hell it is. But also I want to say: don't be afraid. Embrace it, and you'll get through it. You become somebody else. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you are in total distrust of the world. But this is the way it is supposed to be. There is something in our genetic code, something primitive, that takes us over because our rational self cannot deal with the reality. You're an animal now. But the more of an animal you are, the safer you are: it protects you. It's there to help you survive."

How long did the worst of it last? "For two months I was in very bad shape. There was no time to prepare. The world changes in an instant. Swedish women are supposed to be capable. We're not prone to ask for help. But I had to ask for help. I thought that was against my nature." So she turned to friends? "Yes, and they turned to me, that very same day. They just came. They left work early, and they came to our home. Have you eaten? they said. I don't know, I said. They brought wine, and cookies. The kitchen table was rather full. Everyone was just there, putting food on my plate, filling up my glass. This went on until 3am. Look. If you don't know what to say, that's OK. Just be there. A bereaved person needs to see other animals when they're in this state. You think: if they exist, maybe I exist, too."

Read the whole piece in the Observer here.

Death and dumb

2010-02-26T10:01:00.003Z

Over in Austria an undertaker, urged by his PR people, parks his hearse at a blackspot in order to deter sloppy driving. The hearse bears the gloating message: ‘We’re always ready for you.’ The object? Driver sees it, thinks ‘That’s jolly clever,’ slows down and uses that undertaker next time she needs one. Win-win. Read the story in our own dear Daily Mail here.

Over in the US, advertising man Dan Katz damns the initiative: ‘Whenever humor is chosen as an attention-getter, the question always has to be: is it directly relevant to the selling message, or just a gimmick ... I’d argue that it falls short of the real goal, which is to strongly, indelibly link a meaningful benefit (not just death) to the advertiser’s brand ... Creepy for its own sale doesn’t sell, even if it does get top-of-mind awareness. The basics of marketing still apply, including the requirement of having a compelling reason why someone should consider you over your competition.’

To position death as macabre and avoidable is dumb. To use a hearse to strike terror is dumb. That’s so obvious it needs no elaboration. We're too frightened of death as it is.

So if you were an undertaker in the UK (perhaps you are?), would you accede to the wishes of a dead person aged just 85 and display this message on your hearse: "Smoking killed me - please give up!"?

Personal afterthought: I never see a dead person without feeling slightly envious. I often think of that line from Shakespeare: “After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.”

Ambivalence 2

2010-02-25T13:34:00.003Z

If contrary ideas can sit happily alongside each other, contrary emotions can go one better: they can merge and become a potent blend. Love and hate, for example. Courage is nothing without fear. As a rule of thumb, would you say that it’s only possible to experience mixed emotions for people we like? Take exasperation. It can go either way. Directed at someone we don’t like it’s a singleminded expression of terminal fed-upness. But when directed at someone we love, it becomes a complex mix of fed-upness and strong affection, because it’s often their most infuriating qualities and actions which we celebrate with much love and most laughter -- especially after they have died.

Let me come to the point. Sorrow and happiness go famously well together. We all know the meaning of bittersweet and we have all laughed through tears. Be prepared to do that now as you read the following obituary from the Boston Globe. It is entitled Graham H Gardner, 22; ‘angel in the service of God’ and it starts:

By common measures, Graham Hale Gardner could not communicate. Traveling in a wheelchair or a jogging stroller that accommodated his 110 pounds, he uttered not a word, and cerebral palsy rendered his hands unfit to navigate a keyboard.

Instead, blue-green eyes that seemed flecked with gold sent silent messages to the complete strangers drawn to his side. He had the kind of silky brown hair that people want to run their hands through, and many did.

“His face had a radiance, and he had a beautiful benevolence about him, so that when he looked at you and connected with you, you felt like the sun shone on your whole being,’’ said his mother, Cynthia. “He just made you a better person with his incredible grace and enthusiasm and kindness, and it was all done without conventional words.’’

Read the rest here.

Ambivalence 1

2010-02-25T12:14:00.002Z

Interesting, isn’t it, how two contrary opinions need not be mutually exclusive? When one opinion does not displace the other you’re left either tonguetied with indecision or, if they merge, ambivalent. Ambivalence may be seen as fence-sitting, but I think that’s simplistic. To honour two opposed points of view equally seems to me to be a perfectly grown-up way of resolving a problem.

That’s the way my mind was working as I drove home yesterday after seeing Andrew Smith, a funeral director in Macclesfield with a two year-old but already booming business. Andrew does old-school bigtime. It’s what his clients want. And, here’s the point, he does it not for cosmetic reasons, nor to make himself feel important, but in order to create and serve (these are my words, not his) the particular sort and sense of occasion that his clients want. A funeral is something we rise to. And, yes, it is a performance, it is theatre, and any funeral director worth their salt needs to have thought about this, about how the parts are to be played. Any performer who betrays the least self-consciousness or disengagement is fatally flawed. If you can’t lose yourself in the part, all anyone else can see is someone failing to be something they’re not. That’s why costume or uniform is so important. Anything less than perfection begets inauthenticity; it corrupts performance, relegates it to tawdry playacting and renders it meaningless. What goes for the funeral director goes, too, for the spear-carriers – in the case of funerals, the bearers. They need to rehearse. They need to be filled with a sense of occasion – to get into role. And they need to be dressed right. In the bearers’ changing room at Andrew’s funeral home you’ll see a row of immaculately polished oxfords. Not Clarks oxfords, Loake oxfords. The best it gets. Fantastic.

Andrew supposed me to be anti top hat, but I’m not. I’m anti prat in a hat. He also supposed me to be anti-embalming. I am. I am also for it. I can see both sides and I take neither: I am serenely ambivalent. It all depends on how it’s done, why it’s done and the code of conduct in the mortuary. Andrew has a strong feeling about how the dead should be looked after, and he reminded me of something Sean Lynch says in the PBS documentary about Tom Lynch’s funeral home in Michigan: “I have memories as a very young boy of being brought over here with my father as he was working, and watching him and his colleagues dressing and casketing bodies, you know, very quietly, very reverently, doing something for someone that can no longer do anything for themselves, and even at a young age, before I could articulate the importance of that kind of work, I recognised it as something very significant and essential.” If you watch Parts 3 and 4 of the documentary you can see what he means. It’s why Andrew is pro-embalming. He wants people to have the best possible memory of their dead person. Echoes here of Tom: “Watching my parents, I watched the meaning change of what it is that undertakers do, from something done to the dead to something done for the living, to something done by the living, every one of us. Thus, undertakings are the things we do to vest the lives we lead against the cold, the meaningless, the void, the noisy blather and the blinding dark.”

I admire Andrew enormously. I liked the look of Macclesfield, too. Nice place to live, I should think. Certainly a good place to die.

Bloggerel

2010-02-23T11:53:00.002Z

Blogworld is enriched by (almost) every new e-scribbler with opinions to air, especially those with the skill and the intellect to put words to things we’ve often thought about. There aren’t that many bloggers in the death zone. I wish there were more funeral directors (like Pat McNally) with something to say and the urge to say it. Celebrants are slightly more numerous. We recently welcomed the luxuriantly monikered GloriaMundi, and I hope you check in there regularly. Really good stuff.

There’s a new kid on the block. Welcome, Green Energy Globe. Here are some extracts. First, a description of cremation:

Cremation occurs inside of a crematorium finish with an industrial sort furnace. Typically, by fixation a physique in the repartee or cover of the furnace, it is incinerated and roughly utterly used up by fire. The blazing of propane or healthy gas provides temperatures of 1,598-1,796 ° F and the feverishness turn ensures the physique is marked down to bone fragments with all alternative soft hankie vaporized or oxidized as vented gas.

He or she has this take on resomation:

...there is a brand new child on the retard which offers a opposite arrange of immature “cremation” and nonetheless an additional pick resolution to normal funeral practices. You might instruct to cruise a routine called “Alkaline Hydrolysis” or “Bio-chemical Cremation”. Already used in physique ordering of investigate animals, roadkill, or culled, infirm herds of cattle and deer, it is a quick, safe, and spotless routine of violation down proteins, pathogens, and viruses. During this routine of containing alkali hydrolysis, a tellurian physique is placed in to a steel blood vessel or drum-like container, lonesome with H2O which is exhilarated to 350 degrees, along with the further of a clever containing alkali piece called potassium hydroxide (lye). Potassium hydroxide, ordinarily used to have soap and glass, breaks down the body’s tissues and not as big bones.

GEG’s mind wanders over all green issues. Here, for the living, is a description of how you can use recycled materials to create stunning collages:

Onion or Potato BagOnion or potato bags which have been done up of a cosmetic filigree have been a lot of fun for adding hardness to collage crafts. You can have have have have have have have have make make make use of of of of of of of of of of of them similar to a consume and dab them in paint to emanate a singular hardness and pattern when pulpy simply on paper. You can additionally have have have have have have have have make make make use of of of of of of of of of of of this recycled element over or underneath alternative collage equipment for hardness and interest.

There’s a satisfying touch of Sam Beckett, there. And a great new phrase: to cruise a routine.

Read more, if you haven’t gone cross-eyed, here.

Boxing clever

2010-02-22T12:39:00.003Z

Mercedes coffin carved by Ata Owoo, now in the National Museum of Scotland

Interesting, isn’t it – or is it – that coffins, after all this time, still look like nothing else, unless it’s other coffins? New materials – willow, seagrass, you name it – are easier on the eye, they don’t reflect the repellent glint of a winter sky, but there’s no mistaking what they’re for. We’ve even stayed loyal to the traditional toe-pincher style and resisted the oblong (but still unmistakeable) casket, now popular in much of Europe and, of course, the USA.

Over in Ghana they make coffins that look nothing like coffins. In their home country these tend to be rejected by Christian churches because they are reckoned to denote fetishism. When they make the voyage abroad they don't go underground, they get put in museums – like the go-faster coffin above, now in the National Museum of Scotland.

In the UK we have our very own Crazy Coffins, and I guess some who commission one actually go and meet their maker in it. But they are still more popular in the art world than in the death zone.

Brides can never be persuaded to go easy on the expense of their wedding dress on the perfectly sensible grounds that they’ll only wear it once. We are proud to spend as much as we can borrow on weddings and as little as we can get away with on funerals. There are obvious reasons for this.

But the cardboard coffin people could knock up some interesting shapes that wouldn’t cost the earth?

Cryomation wins that Shell award

2010-02-22T11:32:00.003Z

Richard Maclean (Cryomation), Duncan Macleod (Shell) & Mike Morris-Watson (Cryomation)

Congratulations to Cryomation on winning a Shell Springboard climate change innovation prize -a notable vote for this new process, a worthy rival to cremation.

Don't know what Cryomation is? Check out their website here.

Take it to them!

2010-02-15T20:51:00.004Z

It's widely known in the funeral business that the prices charged by Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity are on the whole higher than those charged by their independent competitors - the family businesses and new start-ups - so many of them passionate ex-Funeralcare employees who tell me they learned everything about what not to do at Funeralcare.

Funeral consumers don't know about this. They don't do price comparison shopping. And considering most of them buy just two funerals in their lifetime, and most of them don't have any recently comparable experience, they just assume hopefully that the prices charged by everyone are about the same. They assume that Funeralcare, with its ethical trumpeting and working class roots in will be on their side.

Caveat emptor! And here let's exonerate Dignity. Dignity's in it for the money. It's making lots. Well done, chaps! Don't necessarily like you for it, but realise that the rules of the game are capitalism, and that you play hard and, er, fair.

Why do so many independents moan about the higher prices charged by the big boys yet do nothing to get the message out? Because it would look undignified? I don't know that it would look less dignified than boasting about how cheap your low-cost funeral is as you do at the moment in your coded way.

In Nottingham, the eminently respectable and excellent AW Lymn make no secret of their competitive pricing structure. They break it down and spell it out graphically. Way to go, I'd reckon.

I'm grateful to blog follower Andrew Plume for this intelligence. Thank you, Andrew.

Go to the AW Lymn website. Click on the package prices pdf at the foot of the page, right-hand side.

Holiday reading

2010-02-15T18:57:00.002Z

John Michell

This blog is going on holiday for a week to enjoy fresh sea breezes, long walks and real beers in real pubs. Pubs! The highest proof of the existence of God!

I shall of course be packing some holiday reading, none of it death related though, as we know, Reaper G does have an importunate way of pooping most everything.

I shall also be asking Amazon to send me two books and, were I you (I know, I know, the record shows clearly that I am not), I’d be seriously considering doing the same.

What are they?

First up, Thomas Lynch’s latest. Apparitions and Late Fiction. Read a review here and another here. Now buy it.

Second up: How the World is Made by John Michell. This is the work he was desperate to finish before the cancer did for him last year. Beautiful man, beautiful mind. Buy, buy, buy!

Bye. See you all next Monday.

Window dressing

2010-02-13T12:40:00.004Z

Photo by Dennypoos

Funeral directors are often criticised for their inertia and, to be sure, many of them, not all, move forward with foot-dragging reluctance. The most evident manifestation of this is their cod-Victorian attire. They are, they seem to be saying, neither of us, nor of our century.

If they seem to inhabit a parallel and altogether uninviting universe, or to exist in a time warp, this is an impression reinforced by the changeless aspect of their premises. But if you were a funeral director, how would you demonstrate vitality, catch the eye, stump up trade?

Difficult, isn’t it? You can’t by any means create demand for your service, nor can you trigger impulse buyers. BUY NOW WHILE OFFER LASTS or INVEST IN THE CHATSWORTH AND GET HANDLES FREE! You can’t move with the seasons: SPRING COFFIN RANGE NOW IN! However good you are at what you do, you can’t stimulate repeat business: BUY NOW GET ONE FREE! You can’t hold sales: 1/3 OFF EVERYTHING. EVERYONE MUST GO!!

If you were a funeral director, how would you dress your front window? Coffins? Urns? Tombstones? Trocars through the ages? Difficult not to look self-parodying, isn’t it? The blessed Paul Sinclair is having a lot of success with his miniature motorcycle hearse. That works well. But you need to be able to ring the changes, go with the seasons, tap into the festivals. And most of those are out. You can't risk looking festive, can you? Halloween is the biggest no-no (I’m having to hold myself back, here) but rack your brain. Which would you choose?

You probably have to go with themes. Memory is a good one. This is why so many undertakers have a Remembrance Day display with many poppies and, at Christmas, a tree hung with many lights and stars. The trick here is not to serve as a grim reminder.

Love is another, and the same caveat applies. Do you like the window at the top? It shows enterprise, doesn’t it? The photographer hated it. Check out his pics on Flickr.

Anyone seen any excellent funeral directors’ windows? Photos welcome. Send me a JPEG: Charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Not just for the skint

2010-02-12T13:05:00.003Z

Nice home funeral story here:

When Cathleen, a registered nurse, passed away at Hinds Hospice in Fresno, no mortuary was called due to previous planning. The Fresno County Coroner's Office transported her to their facility and kept her until her funeral Jan. 26.

The morning of her funeral, she was placed in a silk-lined pine casket built by her husband and family friend Roric Russell.

She was wrapped in a quilt, and her husband of 38 years placed her favorite pillow, a Teddy bear and her guitar in the casket. Bob Carlin and Russell then transported her to the North Fork Cementer.

"I just wanted to help Bob out," Russell said. "I went with him (Bob) to the funeral home and the least expensive casket was $800. I asked if we could build a casket and the mortician told me that no one does that but there is no law against it. I asked Bob if he wanted to build one and he said yes. We bought the wood that day."

Plans for building the casket were found from an old Mother Earth Magazine article.

The Carlins had been together since they attended high school in New Jersey prior to moving to North Fork.

Bob Carlin said he felt good about building his wife's casket as it made the process much more personal.

North Fork musician John Kilburn gave Cathleen guitar lessons for 12 years and helped organize a life celebration, held Dec. 13 at North Fork Studio.

"We were able to honor Cathleen while she was still strong. She sang with us and people got to tell her what she meant to them. It was very powerful," Kilburn said.

I’ve only chosen extracts from the full news story, which you can read here. It stresses how much money all this saved. Sure, it does save money if you do it all yourself, but alongside the emotional value of the experience, that’s a detail.

Two big misconceptions going around at the moment: home funerals are for the skint; funeral pyres are for Hindus. Wrong on both counts. They are for everybody. It’s a choice.

Eliminate the negatives

2010-02-12T12:29:00.003Z

Photo by Dr Neil Clifton

Dr Neil Clifton / CC BY-SA 2.0

The hearse pulled up, the conductor opened up the back and one of the mourners whipped out a camera. Something gave her pause. She turned to me (I was the celebrant) and said, “Is this not good in your country?” She was German. I told her that convention counted for nothing, but... Then I got some nods from the others so I told her to go ahead. She got some good pics, and I am sure they all cherish them.

We snap away from dawn to dusk but we stop when we get to a funeral. Why so? Because we want it to leave no visible trace? Perhaps. If you want to shut your eyes tight to something, why on earth would you want to take photographs of it?

If you engage with a funeral you’re bound to want to commemorate it, and take away visible and material reminders. What better than photos?

I’m really pleased when I see cameras at a funeral. It doesn’t happen nearly enough. How many professional photographers out there specialise in it? Well, there isn’t the demand, is there?

I don’t know about that. I think that supply can create demand. Give people the idea, show them the way, and they’ll run with it.

I hope that’ll be true of In Our Hearts Images. Here’s a brave new venture. Remembrance photography, they call it. I like it. Good luck to you, Esther and David. I hope you will soon be flattered by many imitators – none near you, of course.

Open air funerals are go!

2010-02-11T12:59:00.002Z

In the light of yesterday’s Court of Appeal judgement in favour of Davender Ghai and anyone else who wants to be cremated on a funeral pyre, Rupert Callender of the Green Funeral Company, and a Trustee of the Natural Death Centre, has this to say:

The verdict this Wednesday from the High Court accepting the legal arguments presented by The Anglo-Asian Friendship Society and supported by The Natural Death Centre in favour of outdoor funeral pyres is as cheering as it is unexpected. It seems that underneath its musty periwigs and robes, British justice can still feel its way to the spirit of an issue and move radically in favour of the individual.

Of course, this is only a battle that has been won, not the war. The next impenetrable ring of defence, our Orwellian and inscrutable planning system and our perversely selective Environmental Health department will no doubt dig in for a long siege. For those of us who dream of blazing hilltops lighting up the night sky and illuminating dancing crowds, we still have miles to go before we sleep.

The media have predictably missed the point, with all of the major papers failing to grasp the concept that this is a right won for us all, not just those whose religious edicts prescribe it.

The strength of feeling on this matter that I have encountered from ordinary middle class Devonshire folk is incredible. It seems our ancestral memory has been stirred and will not lie down. Only this morning I encountered a woman who railed against not being able to cremate her mother in this way, and the spiritual paucity of what she had to settle for, the ubiquitous twenty minutes in a council run crem.

This is what has really cracked today, the one-size-fits-all funeral box that we have been squeezed into for so long. The people who manage our death rituals, particularly big funeral chains and crematorium consortiums, can be left in no doubt that the fundamental template no longer fits. Convenience can no longer dictate the ritual.

It is of course the crematoriums that are best placed to effect any changes; they solve many of the planning issues by existing already. Crematoriums are divided into those that are privately run, some by big players, and those that are managed by the council. Despite being heavily subsidised with our council taxes, it is the municipal ones that are shabby and run down. In one of our local urban ones, you are locked into a Victorian chapel for twenty minutes, so woe betide any latecomers, and the end of the service is marked by a noise reminiscent of the opening scenes of “Porridge.” The privately run ones, while still being deep in the belly of the capitalist beast at least are open to the whiff of consumer concern. We at the NDC have done our best to tempt them with new technologies, specifically Cryomation and Resomation, but we have also tried to sow seeds of change about how the ritual itself is managed, not just the mechanics of body disposal.

Integrating an area for outdoor cremations would be easy in a practical sense, and show that they do indeed “get it.” It is not quite the showy druidical theatrics of Dr Price that so many of us long for, but it is the beginning of something profound.

Ed’s note: Quoting the Press Association story: “the judgment goes on to state that the difficulties which may be thrown up by planning and public health legislation, should an application be submitted, have not been considered as part of this judgement.

"Furthermore, the method of burning associated with funeral pyres is not covered by any regulations which currently only apply to cremators powered by gas or electricity which are designed to maintain environmental standards, in particular air quality.

"Following the judgment, all local authorities will await further guidance from the Home Office and Defra as regards any proposed regulations or legislation which may control the proposed manner of cremation to ensure environmental standards and public health are protected."