Funeral minus ex

Here’s a situation familiar to all funeral directors and celebrants and to an increasing number of bereaved people. A reader writes to Virginia Ironside at the Independent:

Dear Virginia,

I had been married to my husband for 30 years when he suddenly seemed to have a brainstorm – he left me for an Italian woman, moved to Italy and married her. Now, just six months after they married, he has died of a heart attack.

The problem is that this other woman is organising the funeral and has made it clear she doesn’t want me there. She’s not allowing our children any say in the service, either. I’m so very upset. What can I do?

Here’s her response, plus the responses of others.

A custom more honoured in the breach

There are those who make a distinction between traditional and alternative funerals and suppose alternative funeral directors to be, like their clients, boho, treehugger, oddball shroomers who live in La-La Land towns like Totnes or Stroud “where they’re all like that”.

The label doesn’t fit. It’s not one they use. Theirs is not an exclusive way of working. Their client base is not what you think it is. Here’s some text from the website of the ‘alternative’ Green Funeral Company in, you guessed it, Totnes:

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 honesty, acceptance, and participation, even if that is just helping us to carry the coffin. In doing so, all of us become less of an audience and more of a congregation.

I’ve just received an unsolicited and very beautiful account of a recent funeral. It begins: My 93 year old mother whom we sheltered was a devout Catholic and died peacefully at home of old age. A obvious, classic candidate for a traditional funeral. The works. Maybe a horsedrawn hearse. At least one limousine, maybe three. Four grim-visaged bearers. You’d put your house on it, wouldn’t you?

The account goes on:

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 Claire 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 Claire 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 Claire are leading the new way in dealing with death and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Rupert and Claire are the Green Funeral Company.

There’s a very important lesson here, I believe, for all funeral directors. Especially the one about ‘professional mourners’, which is how the writer feels about bearers. What may be the emotional impact of the appearance of four utter strangers on the day of the funeral in such intimate contact with the person who has died? Are they really always necessary? Why are they never introduced?

Think on, chaps. And ponder the brilliant text on the Green Funeral Company website.

Thank you

I know this blog has around 3,000 readers (and rising). I have no idea who any but a tiny fraction actually are. Google Analytics tells me that most of them are in the UK, and around 500 live in the US. The rest are scattered around the globe, and it’s these who, when I check my stats, most intrigue to me. Who, I wonder idly, is my one reader in Ethiopia? My one reader in Saudi Arabia? My one reader in Iran? That’s their business; I’m not calling on them to tell me.

One thing I have become aware of in the last week is just how many UK readers are funeral directors. The comments on posts about the Saif’s research into funeral prices are some evidence of this; the number of personal emails yet more. If there are two topics that get funeral directors reaching for their keyboards, they are funeral prices and Co-operative Funeralcare. Not, perhaps, surprisingly, the Co-op has many adversaries who email me and, in recent times, just one persistent defender. I am always interested in defences of Funeralcare. Once upon a time I used to send a link to all pejorative blog posts to a Co-op press officer called Phil Edwards, begging him to give me the good news about Funeralcare. He never replied.

Why did Phil not reply? Bad manners? Overwork? Disdain? I don’t know. He never replied, remember. But I guess it may have something to do with the trust Funeralcare places in the power of marketing. Because brand image is all. And it doesn’t have to be earned. Not if you can throw enough money at the right agency to create the right ‘perception’ and enough of it. We all saw the telly ad, right? Cost a few bob. It’ll probably pay for itself lots of times over. So who cares about some little pipsqueak consumer advocate with a PC and a Blogger account? In anticipation of an injunction or some other form of legal intimidation I long ago made over all my worldly possessions to other people for safekeeping. It looks as if I was flattering myself.

I say that, but I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that an independent consumer guide published by a respected, mainstream publisher, complemented by a lively website, cannot do an honest and effective job of creating perceptions which are closer to the truth.

Because this isn’t just about me, some little pipsqueak, etc. Self-appointed experts are not the ones we necessarily admire, but when they research carefully and think hard and test their opinions and listen properly and sideline their egos and speak with and for those who are decent and honest, they are valuable servants of a good cause. So to all those who have written to me, I say thank you. And to those who haven’t, please do, because this is about all of us. The address: charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk

Jessica Mitford took the easy route with the US funeral industry. She held it up to ridicule. Great fun, but not much use to anyone looking for a good funeral director or wanting to create a good funeral ceremony. The emphasis of the Good Funeral Guide will remain the celebration of all that is best in the UK funeral industry. So do, please, send in your good news stories. So that we can accentuate the positive and show people the best it gets.

The Good Funeral Guide
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