“In numberless instances the interment of the dead is in the hands of miscreants, whom it is almost flattery to compare to the vulture, or the foulest carrion bird.”
Writer in Leisure Hour, 1862
Archive: 9 March 2012
Hurrah for Dignity!
Announcement by the Press Association:
The UK’s largest provider of funeral-related services has reported higher profits after its strongest year for the number of families planning ahead for a death.
Dignity, which has 600 funeral locations including 35 crematoria, said the number of pre-arranged funeral plans on its books and yet to take place increased to 265,000 in 2011, from 238,000 the previous year.
The group, which last year held 62,300 funerals, allows customers to plan a funeral in advance and make provisions towards the cost through its Dignity Guaranteed Funeral Plan.
Dignity said underlying pre-tax profits increased by 3% to £41.6 million in the year to December 30, as it increased its location portfolio by 33 in the year.
Sebastien Jantet, analyst at broker Investec, said Dignity had delivered “yet another set of strong results”. He added: “The highlights were a strong performance from the pre-arranged funerals division.”
The Sutton Coldfield-based group said its funeral services division, which brings in the largest proportion of profits, had received investment of around £9.5 million, with roughly half of this funding the replacement of its hearses and limousines.
The group’s crematoria division saw operating profits increase 7% to £21.3 million as it conducted 47,600 cremations, compared with 45,200 the previous year.
The group completed the construction of two crematoria in Somerset and Worcestershire in the period, while work continues on a new crematorium in Essex. The group is also the preferred bidder to operate Haringey Council’s crematorium in north London.
Looking ahead, Mike McCollum, Dignity chief executive, said: “While 2012 has started more quietly than 2011, the board remains confident in the group’s prospects and its expectations for 2012 remain positive and unchanged.”
Here at the GFG-Batesville Tower we celebrated this marvellous news by announcing a half day holiday (unpaid, of course) and shooting an intern.
Blazing indignation
The infantile superficiality of the media’s treatment of issues around death and funerals is something we’ve deplored frequently on this blog — and today’s news is that things haven’t got any better.
Instead of giving serious consideration to what a crematorium might do with the heat it is compelled to capture from its waste gases, a necessary precondition for mercury scrubbing, the Daily Mail prefers to target its readers’ susceptibility to righteous indignation. So we get this:
A council’s cost-saving plans to heat a chapel where mourners go to grieve with energy from the burning of dead bodies has outraged residents.
‘I think it’s outrageous. Relatives will be sitting in the chapel remembering their loved ones and knowing their bodies are being used to cut energy bills,’ said James Sanderson, 43. ‘I would not like to be sitting there thinking my dead gran was heating up the room. It’s sick and an insult to our loved ones.’
What the clever journalist, who surely knows better, has hidden from the readers and the combustible Mr Sanderson, who seems to like going off on one if it means getting in the paper, is that human corpses make very poor fuel. This may be down to them being 72 per cent water. Try and heat your living room by chucking another nan on the fire and you’ll find that out soon enough.
Rentagob is never far from a hack’s mic or notebook at a time like this. In the same article Tory twat councillor Tom Wootton said:
‘The Conservative group is quite shocked by this proposal and we want more information and figures as to how cost-effective this would be.
‘The Liberals have insisted they will not burn rubbish to make energy but here they are proposing to use the heat from burning dead people, which I think is a little strange.”
Here in Redditch this debate has been had and put to bed. A union official raged and an undertaker spluttered, but the good ordinary people of this lovely old moss-covered market town simply thought about it quietly then gave their thumbs up to heating the swimming pool with a little help from the crem.
For they understand that the heat given off by a burning body is negligible, and that their swimming pool will in fact be heated by the heat used to burn bodies.
The British, it seems, are a reassuringly pragmatic people, an impression reinforced by the fact that, when we last looked, no one had bothered to comment on the Mail’s inflammatory nonsense.
Read the whole article, if you can be bothered, here.
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington
We were both in sombre mood as we travelled back along the M4 in Myra’s bright yellow Honda Jazz.
We’d had a slight tiff as we viewed the flowers after Trevor’s funeral. Whilst I was keen to go back to the house for light refreshments, Myra was going on about the long drive home. We couldn’t even agree on whether it should be called a reception, a wake or an after-party. I’m fairly sure that Trevor’s body would have to be there for it to qualify as a wake.
I digress. Marjorie had put on the most marvellous spread of sandwiches and cakes. It seemed to lift her spirits to see us all tucking in. After circulating for a few minutes, I discovered the identity of the miscreant with the inappropriate ring tone – one of Trevor’s drinking pals. Ring-tone Man assured me that Trevor would have “loved it”. And that he was “all forgive and forget”. I began to warm to Trevor’s friend, Andrew. However, the distinct smell of alcohol was rather a mystery at one o’clock in the afternoon.
Marjorie invited me to write in the remembrance book. There were quite a few R.I.P.s together with, only the good die young/ miss you forever/we’ll never forget you. And the baffling “Your (sic) a real ledge mate!” Andrew had written, “Anything to get out of buying a round you tight bugger! Mine’s a double! LOL!”
However, I put away my disapproving face – these were the people who had cared about Trevor and they thought a great deal of him. I glanced across at a room full of smiling faces and quickly dismissed my original idea of writing something in Latin.
As I tried to think of some mots justes, I looked at the photographs that were on display. I spotted an old black and white one taken of all the cousins on my mother’s side of the family. We were in height order: me, the eldest, at the back. And right at the front, there was little Trevor – with his mop of blond hair and his huge lop-sided grin; not a care in the world. Myra was right – it was going to be a long drive home.
“He thought the world of you two you know.” It was Andrew. Apparently, Trevor was proud of his cousins who went to the grammar school. And although we were “a bit posh” we were “up for a laugh”.
I wrote, “You will always be our beautiful golden-haired boy with the cheeky smile. You gave us fun and laughter. Thank you Trevor. Per aspera ad astra.”