11 May 2012 – The Good Funeral Guide

200 years since our PM was shot

11 May 2012

Charles

3 Comments

Categories: Uncategorised

It’s quite a year for anniversaries from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee to the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. It’s also a year when deaths are commemorated from Captain Scott’s failed mission to the South Pole in 1912 to the sinking of the Titanic in the same year.

Less well known is that 2012 is the bicentenary of the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, shot in the central lobby of the House of Commons on 11 May, 1812, by loan pistolman John Bellingham.

The only British PM to have been assassinated (Margaret Thatcher had a near-miss when the IRA bombed her Brighton hotel during the 1984 Conservative Party conference), Perceval’s political preoccupations bring his era to life.

He witnessed crises including the madness of King George III, economic depression and Luddite riots. He opposed Catholic emancipation and reform of Parliament and supported the abolition of the slave trade. He held hunting, gambling, adultery and drinking in disdain, preferring to spend time with his 12 children.

Perceval also supported the war against Napoleon. With wars popularly marked by anniversaries, it’s also the bicentenary of Napoleon’s failed attempt to invade Russia, his thwarted imperial ambitions notably commemorated by Tolstoy in War and Peace and Tchaikovsky in his 1812 Overture.

Talking of French failure, expect the British media to indulge in a bit of jovial French bashing in 2015 when we mark the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt and the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo.

But anticipate far greater commemoration surrounding the victories, defeats and deaths in battle in 2014 when we have the centenary of the start of WW1 and the 75^th anniversary of the start of WWII. I always find it a poignant reminder that there were just 25 years between these wars.

To Spencer Perceval. May he rest in peace (even if he didn’t like Catholics or claret).

Norfolk Funerals

11 May 2012

Charles

37 Comments

Categories: funeral directors

Norfolk Funerals, which opened recently, is the UK’s first and only not-for-profit funeral director. It is a charity, based in Norwich, and it offers funerals at cost price for all merchandise plus a fee to cover overheads, running costs and the wages of its employees.

Eyebrows have been raised. What’s going on here? Why would they want to do this? What’s the real story? Is this some kind of money laundering operation?

Here at the GFG we’ve had a great many emails and phone calls enquiring about Norfolk Funerals. Misgivings have been voiced, some of them mundane, some exotic. At the same time, we’ve been doing our own due diligence.

With the agreement of Norfolk Funerals, we are offering this page as a place where you can ask questions and have them answered by Norfolk Funerals.

We hope that this will enable everyone to see NF for what it is.

Please, ask your question in a comments box below, and Norfolk Funerals will respond directly to it.

We Believe

11 May 2012

Charles

3 Comments

Categories: Community funerals

A new website has just hit the scene: CommunityFunerals.org.uk. It seeks to develop the concept of a not-for profit community funeral service, and presents for consideration four models of what it calls a Community Funeral Society (CFS). It hopes to grow the idea organically by inviting feedback from its readers, then incorporating their ideas. It’s a collaborative project.

It’s a radical idea. Goodness knows what sort of traction it is going to achieve.

But it arrives on the scene at the same time as two interesting new enterprises.

The first is Norfolk Funerals, the first-ever not-for-profit funeral home in the UK, established by a charitable trust and now open for business. Find its website here. Note: we have received a large number of emails about Norfolk Funerals. Please see the separate blog post dated 11.05.2012, where NF will respond to your queries.

The second is Powell and Family Direct, which has established itself as a Community Interest Company (CIC). A CIC is a company structure created, according to the website of the CIC Regulator, “for the use of people who want to conduct a business or other activity for community benefit, and not purely for private advantage.”

Find Powell and Family Direct here.

Bryan and Catherine Powell, founders of Powell and Family Funeral Directors and Powell and Family Direct, are hosting an open meeting for all funeral directors interested in remodelling their business as a social enterprise. It’s called Social Enterprise For Funeral Directors, and it’s being held on Saturday 19 May, 11am til 3pm in their Droitwich office at 15 North Street, WR9 8JB. Book your place by ringing 01905 827767, or email bryan.powell@powellandfamily.co.uk.

Is there a wind of change blowing through Funeralworld?

Below is the creed of ComunityFunerals.org.uk. It is titled, appropriately:

We Believe

1. We believe that customs, practices and attitudes have grown up which isolate and marginalise the dead and the bereaved and must be challenged

2. We believe that one of the consequences of this marginalisation is that the management of death has become commercial rather than community centred, and that, at a time when people are emotionally and cognitively vulnerable, this causes unease for both the client and, often, for the provider of services

3. We believe that funeral ceremonies, for those who want one, can and must offer greater emotional and, where appropriate, spiritual value

4. We believe that everyone should have access to unbiased information and opinion which enable them to make informed, independent choices according to their values and financial circumstances

5. We believe that funerals must offer better value for money

6. We believe that many bereaved people need access to a range of practical and emotional support services which the commercial model struggles to accommodate at present.

7. We believe that these needs can be met only if the work of specialist support agencies is augmented by collaborative, compassionate community engagement in the form of volunteering

8. We believe that most of the tasks funeral directors undertake are not specialist tasks at all and can be undertaken by ordinary people

9. We believe that, as longevity progressively alters the experience of ageing and medical interventions protract the experience of dying, we must find new and better ways of addressing them

10. We believe that denialist attitudes to ageing and dying are rooted in fear, that this fear is rooted in ignorance, and that fear can be mitigated by knowledge and understanding

11. We believe that attitudes to ageing, dying and death must be restored to emotional health in such a way as to reflect their normality and naturalness

12. We believe that communities are brought together when impelled by duty, altruism and self-interest. It is in our interest to help others because, in time, we shall need them to help us. It is also very satisfying

13. We believe that many people playing small parts, according to their abilities, makes us more effective

14. We believe that communities must host conversations and encourage educational initiatives about end-of-life matters among people of all ages, and that these activities are best initiated and hosted by informed, ordinary community members

15. We believe that there are organisational and financial models that are inclusive, secure and affordable and which are flexible enough to adapt to local circumstances. We have called these Community Funeral Societies.

Find CommunityFunerals.org.uk here.

Thoughts of a funeral-goer

11 May 2012

Charles

11 Comments

Categories: Uncategorised

Posted by Lyra Mollington

Nearly twelve years ago, I was with my grandchildren in the queue for the newly opened London Eye when we saw an elderly man collapse. Paramedics arrived quickly but by the time the man was lifted onto a stretcher, a blanket had been pulled over his head. It took me a few seconds to realise the implications of this.

In the intervening years I have often thought about that balmy summer evening. I wondered whether his family, having recovered from the initial shock, had been able to accept that there are (much) worse ways to go. Perhaps they shared what had happened at his funeral. Something like, ‘He’d had a brilliant day out with everyone he loved most in the world. And we all know what he would be saying to us now: “After queuing for an hour, we were nearly at the front. Why on earth didn’t you go on the Ruddy Wheel?”’

From the funerals I’ve attended, it seems that information is hardly ever given about how the person died; apart from being solemnly told that she/he passed away peacefully in her/his sleep. Understandably we are kept in the dark when there are unpleasant details. Few would want to know that their neighbour was discovered dead on the toilet, however painless and quick her death may have been. Or, even worse, that the body wasn’t discovered for several days, but at least her beloved cats didn’t go hungry.

We were told by the vicar at one funeral, ‘On the morning Charlie passed away he was looking forward, as always, to the regular visit from his great friend Derek. He was up and about, clean shaven and smartly dressed, with a couple of tots of whisky ready for Derek’s arrival.’

Everyone agreed that this was what Charlie would have wanted. But afterwards Derek told us that the vicar had missed out the bit that Charlie would have loved the most. After nearly jumping out of his skin, Derek downed the contents of both whisky glasses, having carefully prised one of them out of Charlie’s hand.

Lilian, a dear friend of mine, insisted that the clergyman tell the story of how her 95 year old mother had died during a singing session at the care home. Lil’s mum had been joining in with gusto all afternoon. When the other residents had retired to their rooms, one of the assistants discovered the old lady slumped in her chair, slightly warm but extremely dead. Lil was shocked but she soon started saying that this was ‘the perfect way to go,’ and that her mum had died ‘with her boots on’. Or, strictly speaking, her orthopaedic Velcro slip-ons.

Another friend was proud to inform everyone that her husband had collapsed and died whilst buying a present for their granddaughter in ‘an independent book shop’. For years she had worried herself sick that he would die face down in the gutter as he staggered home from his local.

The widow of a chap who died half way round the golf course asked one of his golfing chums, Maurice, to read the eulogy. He began, ‘Jack had been playing really well that fateful day. He said he’d never felt happier and that when we got back to the clubhouse he was going to buy everyone in the bar a drink.’ At this point, Maurice lowered his voice. With a straight face and through gritted teeth he continued, ‘There and then, I KNEW he was a goner.’

The Who famously sang, ‘I hope I die before I get old.’ Well I hope I die before I get too decrepit and in such a way that my family are able to say at my funeral, ‘She died happy, with her walking boots on.’

Communityfunerals.org.uk

11 May 2012

Charles

6 Comments

Categories: Uncategorised

We apologise for pulling the post on CommunityFunerals.org.uk without explanation. The website came under sustained and relentless attack from YouKnowWho. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. At this moment, 23 men in oily overalls and bearing large spanners are working round the clock, without breaks, to restore the site.

All shall be well, and all shall be be well and all manner of thing, etc.

The team at the GFG-Batesville Tower