February 2011 – Page 3 – The Good Funeral Guide

Sage concern

In recent months there’s been quite a bit of interest in Britain’s bentest undertaker, Richard Sage. A glance at the search terms people use to find my website tell me that, since June ’10, 330 have been hunting ‘Richard Sage’ and another 110 ‘Richard Sage Funeral Director’. That makes him almost as popular as coffins.

Run out of Manchester in October 2009, Mr Sage resurfaced in nearby Burnley where he set up as J Kendal and Sons. All the while, his online cut-price undertaking service, Direct Funeral Services, continued to trade from an address at which another online cut-price funeral director, Nationwide Funerals, was also registered.

At the time of his departure from Manchester, Mr Sage had this to say to the Manchester Evening News: “In regards to my past, yes I have been convicted and served my sentence. Now I have rehabilitated myself back into society and that is what I now call my past – a past that I have learnt from and have moved forward, being a better person.”

This was not the impression formed by the GFG’s North of England Correspondent. He has kept me well-informed of nefarious goings-on. And in his most recent report he informs me that Mr Sage has upped sticks and done (another) runner. He says: “Just been to see his garage where he kept all the hearses and such, its completely empty and the signs off the windows and on the front are all gone, he still has the sign on the side door, which says J. Kendal and Sons Funeral directors and such, but i been keeping close eye on that place … I also been up to the funeral home and it is bare empty and up for sale the signs are still on but its up for sale.”

Whither has he flown this time? Chances are he’s battening down the hatches in his pad on the Costa del Sol. We shall see. But I think he may have learned a lesson, this time, about the power of the internet to disseminate information, enabling people to keep tabs on him. If that’s the case. I am pleased to think the GFG may have played a part.

If it has, then I’d like to say a big thank you on behalf of all of us to the GFG’s North of England Correspondent. I can’t name him, obviously. But I raise my glass to you, sir.

For more background on Richard Sage simply google ‘Richard Sage funeral director’.

Fogey funerals

There are two ways of looking at it – aren’t there always? Either funerals, by loosening up, jettisoning the f-word and calling themselves celebrations of life, are becoming more meaningful, more expressive of what people want to express; or they have become merely conventions of gaudily-clad denialists engaged in an altogether silly and fruitless buck-u-uppo displacement activity.

Wherever the truth lies we have reached a pass – it’s a sign of progress – where certain folk are going to dig their heels in, wind back the clock and go for something retro.

Blogger Matt Archbold (thanks for this link, Pam Vetter) is a Catholic and he wants to restore the oft-dropped tradition of praying for souls in Purgatory (well, his soul, anyway). Active interventions by the living to ensure the wellbeing of their dead, practised to the max by the excellent Hmong, died out with the Churches’ downgrading of Purgatory and the Other Place. All sorts of theological reasons. They don’t seem to be consistent with a loving and merciful God, do they, Purgatory and Hell? As for Protestants, they are taught that salvation is down to whether or not you deserve it. No amount of cheering from the touchline can possibly sway a just and omniscient Supreme Being.

Archbold holds no truck with this revisionism: “Here’s what I want you guys to say at my funeral: Matt Archbold was fairly despicable at times. He was meaner than he was kind, proud of his humility, and not all that nice to his family or friends. Vain. Sarcastic. Selfish. While these may be qualities of a good blogger, they do not bode well for sainthood.

“We have no reason to suspect that Matt Archbold is in Heaven. In fact, I’d just about guarantee he’s not. If God in his infinite mercy somehow allowed Matthew to enter Purgatory it would be a reflection of His mercy rather than any attributes Matt evidenced throughout his life.

“Let us all assume, to be safe, that Matthew is in the bottom rung of Purgatory. Matthew’s fingernails are firmly dug into a cliff at the furthest edge of the Purgatory city limits and he’s hanging on there, his little feet dangling over Hell.

“And the only way you can get him out of there and nearer to Heaven is through your prayers. Pray now. Pray on the ride home. Pray when you get home. Pray. Pray. Pray for days, weeks, and years to come. Please pray.”

Sky News journalist Colin Brazier, who recently survived cancer, shares related retrogressive tastes in funerals:

“Do not go to Tesco and buy one of the supermarket’s tasteless In Sympathy cards. They come in a range of bright colours. Many of them display a lily – popular even before the death of Our Lady Of Versace – but even more so now.

“Do not buy one of the Hallmark cards which could easily be mistaken for an invitation to a child’s birthday party. Contrary to the message these cards are trying to communicate – death is actually grim, frequently bleak, and my (hopefully) grieving family will not be comforted by mass produced frivolity.

“Do not, if you are invited to my funeral, turn up wearing colours of a celebratory hue. I deplore the fashion for “wearing bright colours” – a trend in danger of becoming every bit as obligatory as the rigid absurdities of Victorian widow’s weeds were a century ago. There is nothing starchy and stuffy about wearing black. Dignified dark clothing is not an expression of despair. It is a way of stopping other people bathing in the attention which should be reserved for the deceased and his or her close family. I want my life to be remembered, not celebrated. I do not want my faults airbrushing from history.”

More Matt Archbold here.

More Colin Brazier here.