The Good Funeral Guide

Here’s a lovely story from the Isle of Anglesey, reported by the BBC.

A local funeral celebrant, Tim Clark, has founded a choir to sing at funerals. He has named it Threnody. Tim says: “Many [secular] funerals are at crematoria, where there is not a tradition of choral singing. We aim to change that, and to help people to join us in song. Increasingly, I’m finding that people would like some singing along with some recorded music.”

Threnody’s repertoire, comprising both sacred and secular music, includes many Welsh favourites whose names we shall not give you because you’d never be able to pronounce them. 

What a difference the fresh immediacy of live singing will make. Here at the GFG Batesville Tower we applaud this initiative to the echo.

It’s such a good idea we hope it goes viral. 

Full story here. 

Good night sweetheart, till we meet tomorrow
Good night sweetheart, sleep will banish sorrow
Tears and parting may make us forlorn
But with the dawn, a new day is born (so I’ll say)
Good night sweetheart, tho’ I’m not beside you
Good night sweetheart, still my love will guide you
Dreams enfold you, in each one I’ll hold you
Good night sweetheart, good night

Good night sweetheart, till we meet tomorrow
Good night sweetheart, sleep will banish sorrow
Tears and parting may make us forlorn
But with the dawn, a new day is born
(so I’ll say) Good night sweetheart, tho’ I’m not beside you
Good night sweetheart, still my love will guide you
Dreams enfold you, in each one I’ll hold you
Good night sweetheart, good night

Really nice recent obit here from The Times: 

Hilary Ruth ALLEN 

It’s a 1928 Chevrolet van converted into a hearse. The conversion was carried out by Robin Hattswell-Burt, who works at Penryn and Falmouth Funeral Directors in Cornwall. Says Mr Hattswell-Burt, ““I like to think we offer a more modern funeral.”

Story in the Times here. Beware paywall.

The funeral industry is in a bad place. Public reaction to last week’s Which? report revealed few friends. It also showed it to be no good at defending itself.

Things are going to get worse. Time is running out. 

At the GFG we’ve lost count of the number of calls we’ve taken in the last year from TV production companies, in particular, wanting, with one honourable exception, to dig dirt and put the boot in. The bully boys are circling. 

Crisis? Yes, crisis.

Consumers are baffled and angry because there’s no way of knowing who’s good (if any) and who’s not. Poor marketing is a contributory cause. But the most brutal truth of the matter is that the codes of conduct of the industry trade bodies, NAFD and SAIF, simply do not, by themselves, offer consumers quality assurance.

So what’s a good undertaker to do? From time to time, here at the GFG, we like to offer suggestions.

First, the good guys need to hang together and keep the bad eggs out. They can do that in one of two ways. They can form yet another trade body, a selective one. Or they can adopt a different business model.

In the past we’ve looked at the viability of rolling out a really good, proud brand – ‘John Lewis’ funerals. That’s the way for the consolidators to go. Presently, the consolidators are adding zero value to consumers’ experience of a funeral, and short-term value only for their shareholders. Their present way of operating is astoundingly dim.

We’ve also looked at the joint venture model used by Specsavers – here. 

Another model that funeral directors might like to consider is the Best Western model.

It’s a clever and an attractive way of doing things – a collaborative way of doing things. Best Western is an organisation which provides back office roles, marketing, reservations and operational support, to over 4,000 hotels in 80 countries worldwide. Best Western doesn’t own any of these hotels; each one is independent. It’s a chain, but it’s not a chain. You get the best of both worlds: all the warmth and individuality of an independent hotel, and all the assurance of quality standards which all hotels have to meet.

It’s not an orthodox franchise operation where both franchisor and franchisee operate for profit. Best Western is a non-profit membership operation which works, democratically, as near as dammit as a co-op, one member, one vote. Membership is renewed annually.

Re-read the last two paragraphs substituting ‘funeral director’ for ‘hotel’ and you begin see how easily this model could adapt to the funeral industry.

Here at the GFG we do not feel a sense of responsibility to save the funeral industry. Our focus is the best interests of consumers. Good funeral directors collaborating effectively to keep each other up to the mark and get the message out would help a lot. 

It is high time they got their act together. 

The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition

A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

It’s out in May 2012!

Nick Drake committed suicide in 1974 aged 26.

When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done.

When the day is done
Hope so much your race will be all run
Then you find you jumped the gun
Have to go back where you begun
When the day is done.

When the night is cold
Some get by but some get old
Just to show life’s not made of gold
When the night is cold.

When the bird has flown
Got no-one to call your own
Got no place to call your home
When the bird has flown.

When the game’s been fought
Newspapers blow across the court
Lost matches sooner than you would have thought
Now the game’s been fought.

When the part is through
Seems so very sad for you
Didn’t do the things you meant to do
Now there’s no time to start anew
Now the part is through.

When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done.

Buddhist monks and devotees stand around a pyre during a high priest’s cremation ceremony at the Heain-sa temple in Hapcheon, South Korea, on Jan. 6, 2012. The ceremony, called Dabisik, was held for Ji-Kwan, a former head of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.

The Dabisik ceremony signifies the return of the human body to nature. The casket is placed on a pyre constructed from wood, charcoal and thatched bags. After the body has burned, the bones are gathered from the ashes, crushed and ground up.

Click on the photos to bring them up to full size. 

Source

Irish Traveller’s grave, Ireland.

Enjoy the whole photo essay here. Including this photo below.