July 2012 – Page 4 – The Good Funeral Guide

Make your own carryyouoffin

13 July 2012

Charles

No comments

Categories: coffins

From the Waikato Times, New Zealand:

A Hamilton high school night class offering people the chance to build their own coffin has been inundated with budding box builders looking to cut funeral costs.

Clyde Sutton, a Fraser High School relief teacher, said a surprising amount of community interest was behind the move to teach carpentry with what some might consider a potentially macabre example.

“Death can be a bit of a taboo subject but this class is a sign of the times and is much cheaper (than buying a coffin),” he said.

“It’s a way for people to look at their own mortality and have some decision in their death, rather than leaving it up to someone else.”

Fraser High adult and community education director, Peter Faulkner,initially laughed the idea of coffin-crafting class off as crazy. “There was enough enthusiasm out there though, so I started to take it more seriously,” he said.

Mr Faulkner said people used coffins for all sorts of things, such as coffee tables and bookshelves.

“It’s not only about saving some money but rather taking charge of that part of your life,” he said.

Source

An affair of the heart

13 July 2012

Charles

1 Comment

Categories: memorialisation

From today’s Daily Telegraph:

Dedicated Winston Howes, 70, spent a week planting each oak sapling after his wife of 33 years Janet died suddenly 17 years ago.

He laid out the fledgling trees in a six-acre field but left a perfect heart shape in the middle – with the point facing in the direction of her childhood home.

The labour of love has now blossomed into a mature meadow – a peaceful oasis where Winston can sit and remember his wife of 33 years.

His meadow cannot be seen from the road and has remained a family secret until a hot air balloonist took a photograph from the air.

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Simile of the day

13 July 2012

Charles

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Categories: Quotes

“This was the last of the fast Oval pitches. If Malcolm hadn’t taken nine for 57, there might have been a case for making Harry Brind the man of the match. Brind, in his last season as head groundsman at Surrey, produced a glorious wicket: hard, fast and as true as a dying man’s final words.”

Rob Smyth in the Guardian on the third Test vs South Africa, 1994.

Source

Simple solution

13 July 2012

Charles

8 Comments

Categories: funeral cost, funeral directors, Pauper funerals, scandals

We had an enquiry the other day about simple funerals. Our enquirer had visited the website of a funeral director, surveyed the components of their simple funeral (as prescribed by the NAFD at 11.4), and reckoned it would do nicely. The cost was £1640.

All our enquirer wanted on top was a limousine. He gave the funeral director his order: one simple funeral, please, and a limousine. So logical and straightforward did the request seem to him that he was astounded when the funeral director replied, “Thank you, sir, that’ll be £3670.”

Two grand for a limousine (fair price, £200 tops). Where the heck did that come from?

Students of the Dismal Trade will not be nearly as astounded as was our enquirer. Most funeral directors hate people buying their simple funeral, so they build in deterrents. The example above is just one. Anything outside the package shunts you up to an altogether more elevated price scale. Add a lim and you pay for a bespoke funeral. Another trick is to bundle a coffin of more than passing hideousness and make you feel like a toerag. The coffin in our enquirer’s simple bundle has no handles. Yes, really. Flagrant to those who read this blog, perhaps, but not, interestingly, something that our enquirer seems to have noticed or cared about.

A great many funeral directors do not advertise their simple funeral. Why does this funeral director advertise his? Is it a gambit to get people through the door – a loss leader that no one ever actually gets to buy? You tell me.

This sort of marketing sleight of hand comes from the Tommy Cooper school of conjuring. Clumsy. When you do something that’s bound to be found out, that’s stupid.
Intelligent, ethical funeral directors can teach their dim or devious fellows a trick here. Start with your professional fee. Calculate how much you need to charge to cover your time, expenses and overheads, then add a bit of profit. Be settled in your mind that what you take home will not be so little as to make you resentful. Once you’ve done that, you can add merchandise and services at a normal retail markup or even at cost. If a client turns up with their own coffin, you won’t mind a bit. The important thing is that there will be no imperative to upsell.

Exploitation of the bereaved is under threat, not from consumers, but from new entrants to the industry who are pricing their services fairly and transparently. The days of the dark arts are, we must hope, coming to an end.

Not yet awhile. Down in London, Barbie Leets was compelled to permit her mother to have a public health or council funeral when she failed to get together the five thousand pounds she needed to bury her. She is angry with the funeral directors in her locality. Why? In the words of the BBC report:

Barbie Leets ‘says that she was never told about the simple funeral that every funeral director is supposed to offer for nearly half the price she was quoted. “I feel very let down, very disappointed. I feel they took advantage of my situation at the time.”’

Watch the video clip here. Enjoy the response from NAFD spokesperson Dominic Maguire.

If you have a view about this, please add a comment. I am conscious that what I have written may not say it all. Examples of ethical simple funerals welcome, too.

Thoughts of a funeral-goer

13 July 2012

Charles

7 Comments

Categories: Thoughts of a funeralgoer

Posted on behalf of Mrs Mollington by Barry

I have not been well lately so Barry, Daisy’s lovely friend, is kindly typing this as I dictate my latest ‘Thoughts’. He is an excellent touch-typist despite having builder’s hands.

He’s smiling – he’s a retired English teacher. But I don’t think he’ll mind if I proof-read it before he emails Charles. I hope we meet the deadline.

Yes Barry, type everything I say and if there’s time I’ll edit it later. If you’re not sure, put it in brackets.

(Deep breath…)

Everyone thought I had made a full recovery from that virus and, when Daisy visited me a few days ago, she said how well I was looking. It was then that I knew something was wrong. I could see the concern in her kind eyes. I chose to ignore it, as she chose to ignore the way I struggled to take a sip of tea.

Dehydration. Nature’s way of telling us we’re ready.

The following day, I could barely lift my head from the pillow. My children, Jamie and Alex, were next to my bed, sitting on the high-backed chairs from the dining room.

Jamie was talking quietly. It was a while before I realised that she was reading from a book. Kazuo Ishiguro’s sublime The Remains of the Day. We had discussed it endlessly and we’d watched the film together. Poor selfless Mr Stevens. As I listened to my daughter reading, I decided that Anthony Hopkins would never have found happiness with Emma Thompson. Then I pondered, ‘Why on earth is Jamie reading this to me when I am quite obviously dying? Could she not find my Pam Ayres?’

(No Barry, I don’t think Mr Stevens wasted his life. Well, not completely anyway.)

My son Alex has an important job in the city. So the fact that he was here in my bedroom in the middle of the morning meant that it must be serious. That and those dining-room chairs. He was talking softly into his phone – someone from work. Lots of technical jargon and the occasional swear word. Sounded like one of those characters from the mockumentary ‘2012’. Things have changed since I worked in an office.

(Yes, I’m positive mockumentary is a word Barry. Ignore the squiggly red line. On second thoughts, right click it and add it to the dictionary.)

We’re told that as we die, our lives flash before us. My mind was a blank, apart from one vivid memory from more than sixty six years ago. I was eight years old and really poorly with the measles. Mum decided to fetch the doctor. When I realised that she was about to leave, I called out in my delirium, ‘Don’t slam the door!’ As my bedroom door was quietly closed, I cried, ‘Noo! You slammed the door…’

(Yes, Barry. I’ll let you spell ‘no’ with an extra ‘o’.)

Since that day, I have never liked being in a room with the door completely closed. Over the years, my little foible has been the source of many comical incidents.

(No Barry, I’m not going to elaborate.)

As Alex put his phone on my bedside table, I couldn’t help worrying about my last words. One could say something noble, only to live a bit longer and end up saying something like, ‘There’s a cobweb up there.’ I have occasionally day-dreamed about this sort of thing in an idle moment. We’ve even talked about it around the dining room table. Mr M wants to say the words from Spike Milligan’s tombstone, ‘I told you I was ill.’ But I favour, ‘There’s something incredibly important I’ve been meaning to tell you…’ Followed by a slight choking sound and then silence.

(Why do I call him Mr M? Have you never seen an episode of Columbo, Barry? The spouse always remains a mystery.)

Back to my dying moments. As I was wondering whether I had the energy to say any final words at all, I heard a pitiful yelp coming from the landing. So I mumbled, ‘Mr Chunky wants to see me.’

As I took my final breath, Jamie whispered, ‘Is she?’ But before Alex could reply, I breathed again and they both jumped, stifling short cries.

When Daisy stepped out of the wardrobe, I should have realised that my grip on reality had well and truly slipped. She was frantically flicking through the pages of the Natural Death Handbook, shouting, ‘Where’s the cremfilm? We can’t have any leakage! She promised me there’d be no leakage!’

(Yes Barry, cremfilm is also a word. And, no it’s nothing to do with keeping sandwiches fresh.)

Then Daisy calmly asked me if it was all right if she measured me for my coffin, adding, ‘Should it be in inches or centimetres?’

(No Barry, I didn’t see a bright light at the end of the tunnel: just Daisy with a look of determination and a wooden ruler.)

I must have fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep after that. When I finally awoke, Daisy explained that they had taken it in turns to sit with me and Mr M had kept vigil through the night, holding my hand for hours. It seems I was delirious at one point. Everyone was extremely worried especially when I cried out, ‘Remember, I want a burial cloud AND Highland Cathedral!’

(No Barry, it’s not that strange. A burial cloud is a type of coffin. Yes, it should have a capital B and C. And yes, I would like a real piper to play Highland Cathedral. In a kilt.)

Postscript from Barry: Lyra is making a steady recovery and is staying with her sister Myra (I think that’s what she told me to say although I’m sure Daisy told me her name is Mary).

Stat of the day

12 July 2012

Charles

7 Comments

Categories: Grief

A study in Finland (1996) found that men are 30% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, and 20% more likely to die thereafter.

Women, on the other hand, are 20% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, falling to under 10% thereafter.

What this tells us I have no idea.

The Common and the particular

12 July 2012

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: Art and death, Poetry

Posted by Vale

I like these men and women who have to do with death,
Formal, gentle people whose job it is,
They mind their looks, they use words carefully.

I liked that woman in the sunny room
One after the other receiving such as me
Every working day. She asks the things she must

And thanks me for the answers. Then I don’t mind
Entering your particulars in little boxes,
I like the feeling she has seen it all before.

There is a form, there is a way. But also
That no one come to speak for a shade
Is like the last, I see she knows that too.

I’m glad there is a form to put your details in,
Your dates, the cause. Glad as I am of men
Who’ll make a trestle of their strong embrace

And in a slot between two other slots
Do what they have to every working day:
Carry another weight for someone else.

It is common. You are particular.

The poem is by David Constantine. It was found in Neil Astley’s Anthology Being Human. You can find it here. Hat tip to Sweetpea.

Interdependence

12 July 2012

Charles

6 Comments

Categories: celebrants, ceremony, funeral

Posted by Vale

We were saying farewell to a very old lady – nearly 99 – who had spent her last years living in a care home. She had no family there and, apart from myself and the organist, there were just four people present, all of them members of staff from the Care Home.

It could have been perfunctory: decent, caring even, but a bit of a formality. In the event it was one of the most moving services I have ever been involved in.

It made me wonder where our feelings come from. We are involved in funerals all the time, why is it that, even if we are always engaged, empathetic, professional, there are some services – not always the most tragic – that carry an extra emotional charge?

For me the answer lies in the relationship we have with our clients. It looks straightforward, is usually quite brief, yet in my experience manages to contain all sorts of complexities.

What happens when you meet people – family, a group of friends, carers – for the first time? You bring experience, knowledge, expertise and a commitment to helping them shape the funeral that they need.

In return you receive a commission which is both practical and almost intangible. As you go off perhaps to find poetry and music, perhaps to write a tribute, you also carry with you a responsibility to be truthful to their feelings as they would like them represented at the funeral service.

It’s not always easy. You must in some measure set aside your own reactions to a death and even, on occasion, your own beliefs about the benefit of ‘good’ funerals. But in the end your only justification is to be truthful to their need. You reflect and are validated through their feelings. You depend on them in the same measure that they are depending on you.

In the case of my very elderly lady, although she had no family two of the carers had looked after her for twelve years, had grown to love her and were passionately concerned to give her the best and most feeling send off that they could manage.

So although there was no life story and only the smallest things to remember – a saying, a look, a turn of the head – her funeral was charged with mystery, love and, in the end, a sense that together we had been able to do what was needed.

Before I die

11 July 2012

Charles

6 Comments

Categories: Art and death, Death; Good death

Posted by Vale

At the Southbank Deathfest in January one of the best features was the wall that invited people to write down what it was that they wanted to do before they died.

The idea began in New Orleans when artist Candy Chang pasted the first ‘Before I Die’ wall on the side of an empty house.

You can see more about the first wall here.

Although it closed in September buy tadalafil 20mg uk 2011, the idea has spread all over the world including London. Interest has been so great that a website has been set up showing walls from across the world. It includes a kit for people to create their own before I die wall. Why not set one up near you? Something for one of those empty shopfronts on our derelict High Streets?

The kit can be found here.

Last things

11 July 2012

Charles

6 Comments

Categories: Attitudes to death, Death; Good death

Posted by Vale

When I was at school there was a short lived craze for making yourself faint. If I recall, you hyperventilated and then got a friend to squeeze you round the chest, at which point you passed out.

It’s now claimed that this is equivalent to a near death experience. There’s a discussion here, with descriptions of how to to do it (along with a firm warning about not trying them yourself).

Here at the GFG we don’t think it’s a very good idea either. It may be unsafe of course but we also disapprove because, while we believe strongly that people should prepare for death, self inducing a near death experience is, we feel, one of the less constructive approaches.

Religions have suggested alternatives. Hinduism promotes the idea that life has stages and that after the Celibate Student and Family Man the good Hindu will become a Hermit in Retreat and, finally, a Wandering Recluse. Not surprisingly it notes here that practice of the last two stages has become almost obsolete now.

The Christian tradition of meditating on the ‘Four Last Things’ (Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven) may have more going for it.

Facing up to death, living with the knowledge of its inevitability, trying to prepare yourself all seem to me to be essential elements both of living and dying well. Meditating on Last Things would surely help prepare the mind.

But what Last Things might you meditate on? Death Judgement, Hell and Heaven don’t do it for me at all.

As an alternative I have started work on a personal list. It’s provisional at the moment but might include: meditation on ancestors and all that has made me the person I am; on the things that, from this vantage point, have turned out to matter; on the things that I have made or started; above all on everything that I have learned to love.

This feels like work in progress though. What would be amongst your Last Things?