The GFG Blog

2014Dec

The PM who was cremated before his funeral

Charles
Dec 02
No Comments
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Neville Chamberlain (above) died from cancer on 9 November 1940, just six months after he resigned as Prime Minister. Winston Churchill, his successor, paid tribute to him on 12 November despite the two men having disagreed over the ‘appeasement’ of Hitler:  ‘Whatever else history may or may
Categories:  Uncategorised

Gridlocked in Ross-on-Wye four days before Christmas

Charles
Dec 01
4 comments
Guest post by David Hall Christmas is an important time of the year for Vintage Lorry Funerals as all of the 450 Funeral Directors, who display pictures of the 1950 Leyland Beaver, receive a Christmas Card in the second week of December. The process starts in July when David Hall’s
Categories:  Hearses

2014Nov

Revealed: the one and only fix for funeral poverty

Charles
Nov 24
19 comments
The problem:  The circumstances of the death do not admit of any effective competition or precedent examination of the charges of different undertakers, or any comparison and consideration of their supplies. There is not time to change them for others that are less expensive, and more in conformity to the
Categories:  funeral cost, funeral directors

All fine by who?

Charles
Nov 20
35 comments
Here’s something that’s been bobbling in my mind for ages. Finally, spurred by a newspaper story announcing that Grimbsy crematorium is going to fine funeral directors £159 if a service overruns, I sprang into action. I wrote to the crematorium manager: I see that NE Lincs Council has announced a
Categories:  crematoria

Remembering the dead

Charles
Nov 19
1 comment
Older readers will recall that, by the 1970s, observance of the two minutes’ silence on 11/11  had declined in the civilian sphere to such an extent that a great many people paid no heed to it whatever and carried on doing whatever they were doing. There’s been a big revival of observance in
Categories:  memorialisation

First funeral at historic Plymouth venue

Charles
Nov 18
4 comments
Posted by Wendy Coulton This week 200 people attended the first non religious funeral at Devonport Guildhall in Plymouth — see previous blog post here. The funeral ceremony was 35 minutes duration followed by a private committal service at the crematorium. It absolutely reaffirmed my belief that the bereaved in the
Categories:  Funeral venues

Bring on the empty corpses

Charles
Nov 17
3 comments
Book review: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty Caitlin Doughty, graduate in medieval history and author of a sunny thesis entitled The Suppression of Demonic Births in Late Medieval Witchcraft Theory, rejects a promising career in academia in favour of one as a corpse handler and incinerator of the
Categories:  Academia and death, alternative funerals, Art and death, Assisted suicide, Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, Books, cremation, direct cremation, home funerals

Onsite SEO for Funeral Directors

Charles
Nov 14
2 comments
Posted by Mark Sharron For the third part in this series on SEO for funeral directors I’m going to explore onsite SEO. The goal of this post is to give you an understanding of how the major search engines view your website’s funerary focused content. If you think back in time
Categories:  Marketing

Local and community

Charles
Nov 10
No Comments
Guest post by John Porter My first job was in a local grocer’s shop. They boiled ham in their kitchen – hmmmm, I can smell it now – and would cut three special slices, carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper for Mrs Rogers who came in every Tuesday. She chatted for a
Categories:  celebrants, Community funerals, funeral directors

Are you a charitable body?

Charles
Nov 06
3 comments
Posted by Ken West  Have you thought about the scrap metal value of your body? It began with metal hip joints but as we live longer and spend more time falling over and head butting the skirting boards, metal bone splints now outweigh the hips. Body piercing has added tongue studs
Categories:  crematoria