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The Green Funeral Company
Address: Old School Farm, Foxhole, Dartington Hall Estate, TOTNES TQ9 6EB
Phone: 01803 863 923 Email: enquiry@thegreenfuneralcompany.co.uk Web: www.thegreenfuneralcompany.co.uk
Funeral Director/s: Rupert and Claire Callender. Rupert was inspired by the Natural Death Centre after experiencing bereavement as a child and young adult. Claire, his wife, joined after his third funeral, bringing ten years’ experience of the independent music business. Both trustees of the Natural Death Centre. They’re into reading, films, briskly walking a lurcher, fishing, eating, dancing all night, festivals, camping, writing, going to the beach, going to the moor, raising children.
Specific Gravity: Not your classic undertakers by any stretch. “When we first meet you, we are unlikely to be wearing suits. We do not have a fleet of hearses and limousines. We do not employ bearers. We do not have a standard funeral.” How do they dress? “We can be as formal or informal as people ask.” In the early days, Rupert was asked to take a service for a naturist, naked. “I agreed, but luckily it was a hoax. (It was February!)”
What’s important? “We do not consider faux-Victoriana and a mournful expression to be an assurance of respect and dignity. That is not to say we are unable to produce a traditional funeral spectacular—we have buried generals and lords—but we approach each funeral as unique. What is at the core of our work is participation, even if that is just helping us to carry the coffin.”
What’s different? For those who do not want an orthodox religious funeral “we create the ceremony with the family and lead the service, or help them to take the service. Bringing a secular celebrant into our relationship with the client can sometimes break the intimacy.” For religious folk “we have a number of fantastic freelance clergy on our books. For humanists, “we have celebrants we rate highly.” Do not generally use a hearse, but a Mondeo estate or people carrier instead. “If people want a hearse we hire one in.”
Services: Phone always answered by Rupert or Claire. Will visit you at home if you wish. Will act as consultant to home funeralists and “have done so on many occasions”. Against routine embalming, say it’s “sometimes psychologically jarring”. Experience of ethnic minorities limited by ethnic makeup of Devon. Yes to same sex undertaker to lay out body if you wish. Very keen you should come and help if you wish. Will soon have a natural burial ground. Three free post funeral counselling sessions offered with a qualified therapist.
Remarks: Unstuffy, incredibly likeable and deeply serious: “unencumbered by the baggage of traditional funeral culture.” Able to relate to people of all sorts, best suited to those who want to co-create the funeral. A breath of fresh air. The future.
There are 4 comments about The Green Funeral Company
Ali Morrish said...
My daughter Anna was killed in a car crash in July 2008. I was forced into a situation no parent would ever wish to face and with no knowledge of funerals and no specific religious faith, the thought of such an event was horrific. Thankfully a friend recommended the Green Funeral Comapny and if it wasn’t for Rupert and Clare, I don’t know how we would have survived the ordeal. They organised a green burial on Dartmoor for us, with great sensitivity to our entire family. They made suggestions and allowed us to make ours. They looked after my daughter’s body with such kindness and dignity that made it possible for me as a mother to grieve and to be in that space as fully as I needed to be. The only good thing to come from this most terrible time, was meeting these wonderful people. I highly recommend the Green Funeral Company to anyone who longs for something more meaningful for this last most important rite of passage.
Andy Darby said...
Rupert and Claire helped me through the hardest day of my life with caring and empathy that I had not thought to find in a funeral company.
Having attended several funerals of relatives and in-laws over the past few years I have had the chance to observe first hand the ‘usual’ funeral. I always felt as if they were an impersonal ‘going through the motions’, something that had to be done but that nobody really wanted to do. Rupert and Claire where about as far from that as is possible to get. Their totally hands on style and immediate connection made it seem as if everything was being handled by friends – which is so much more comforting than giving control over to the usual funeral machinery and having little input into the whole process.
The chapel of rest in which we visited my wife was perfect. Very simple, very warm, with no pressure on time or, indeed, anything else. All of those who attended, both friends and family, said how surreally beautiful it was and how much they gained from the experience.
After a couple of meetings, both in my own home, Rupert created a service that was perfect. With input from myself and passages that my wife had picked for herself, he combined Buddhist, shamanic and even Methodist writings and ideas into a seamless service. In fact I have had many people asking me how long Rupert had been a friend of the family and they were all, without exception, amazed to find out that we had only met a few days previously. He managed to capture my wife so well, even things we hadn’t talked about, that it was a truly personal and special ceremony in a very beautiful setting.
I would whole heartedly recommend The Green Funeral Company. It is the most difficult of times but one which we all have to go through eventually so to have someone accompany you on that journey so gracefully can not be too highly prized.
Thank you Rupert and Claire.
Graham Montague said...
I couldn’t have wished for better people to help create a funeral that my wife would have wanted. Joy did not want a religious funeral and had expressed a wish to be buried in a wood that we had planted on our land. Rupert and Claire worked with me and my wife’s parents, who are religious, and we achieved a ceremony that was informal, moving, participatory and meaningful. Joy’s parents think the funeral was as ‘wonderful’ as such an occasion can be. Our vicar attended in an unofficial capacity and has said that it was one of the most moving and memorable she has ever been present at. Rupert and Claire are supportive, understand the individual’s wishes and make appropriate suggestions. They have a wonderfully gentle and empathetic manner, combined with a quiet authority that reassures and inspires confidence in them. If you are seeking to arrange a funeral that is very personal and not necessarily what you think convention demands, I wholeheartedly recommend The Green Funeral Company.
Jane Turnbull said...
My 93 year old mother whom we sheltered was a devout Catholic and died peacefully at home of old age. Having never thought of the details of her funeral I suddenly realised that I had a profound distaste for the whole strange Victorian hangover of the ‘traditional’ funeral with the big polished coffin and the ‘professional’ mourners. Rupert and Clare helped me give my mother the funeral that felt right for our family, combining a full Catholic Requiem mass with the kind of intimacy and lack of ‘show’ that reflected my mother’s personality. They collected her body from our house treating her with extraordinary respect, and took her to their beautiful premises on the Dartington estate which we visited a few days later. We chose a woven bamboo coffin and just a single beautiful spray of spring flowers from a florist Rupert recommended. On the day of the funeral they drove back to our house in Cornwall in a black Volvo Estate rather than a hearse and we and all the others followed through the countryside to the church. My husband and children and I carried the coffin in. This was at the suggestion of Clare and I hadn’t realised how utterly right it is that one should do this. The last practical assistance that one can give a parent is to carry them into church for their farewell service as they would have carried you in for your welcoming baptism. The whole congregation seemed to feel this was something deeply right and very moving – and quite revolutionary. When I look back on the day now, a month later, I do so with a feeling of deep satisfaction. She had, as they say, a good send-off – and it was one that we will remember as expressive of who we are and of who she was. Rupert and Clare are leading the new way of dealing with death and I cannot recommend them highly enough.