Archive: 24 September 2012

You, the good news and Channel 5

24 September 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: celebrants, funeral, funeral customs, funeral directors, funeral trends

We are pleased to pass on to you this appeal from a TV production company making a good-news documentary for Channel 5. We’ve spoken to them at length and like them. If you have created a really special funeral, or are a funeral director or a celebrant who has collaborated, or is currently collaborating, with families to achieve something special, we encourage you to get in touch. 

Planning a personalised funeral? Breaking with convention? 

We’re making a really positive television documentary for Channel 5. We would like to show the diverse range of possibilities for people to take control of their funeral and create ceremonies and memorials that are more personal and reflective of the individual concerned. The documentary aims to explore all the diverse ways this can be done which the wider public may not know about. 

As producers, it has been a real eye opener to learn that the conventional funeral is a Victorian invention and that legally we are much freer to do things differently than we ever realised. We’d love to get this across and to illustrate it we’d like to meet people who are planning a personalised funeral or memorial. We are not prescriptive and open to all new suggestions. We will be filming from mid September to the end of October. 

The tone of the programme will celebrate the diverse range of commemorations that are possible and highlight a more contemporary approach to marking death in a really positive way. We hope the film itself may serve as a good memory and we can make it available to families. In certain circumstances we may be able to contribute towards expenses. 

Back2Back Productions is a Brighton-based documentary production company specialising in high quality factual programming and you can see our work on our website.  

If this sounds interesting please get in touch and feel free to ask us anything at all about the project. anne.mason@back2back.tv or  01273 227700

Cool heads, warm hearts

24 September 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funeral directors, scandals

Anticipation is building in advance of ITV’s upcoming exposé of the funeral industry. We don’t have to tell you that the industry’s pulse is beating fast in anticipation of ITV’s upcoming shocker. Pre-emptive fury and sulphurous denunciation have already broken out in the comments columns of our blog, threatening to subvert the civility and coolness which normally characterise debate here. 

A more judicious course for all of us at this time would be dispassionately to appraise the evidence uncovered by the programme after we have seen it, consider the reactions of viewers — once and future clients of funeral service — and respond constructively. What some of the more intemperate writers of comments on this blog fail to understand is exactly how their ranting and stigmatising makes them look. You thought it was bad when you watched the programme? Look what these guys say, look at the way they say it.

As Bryan Powell (commenting under his real name, as he always does) points out here, the story of Funeral Partners is not all bad.  Well, it was unlikely to be as simple as that, was it? If you know enough, it’s impossible not to feel conflicted. One of the most superb funeral directors we know works for Funeral Partners. 

At the same time, it looks as if FPL is going to have some explaining to do. There will be different schools of thought on how such a deplorable state of affairs could have developed. 

The effectiveness of the NAFD will once again be called into question, and there is likely to be renewed call for regulation. The stated position of the NAFD is as follows:

Members of the National Association of  Funeral Directors are totally committed to raising and maintaining the highest level of customer service through the strict adherence to the Association’s Code of Practice. The NAFD supports the principle of self regulation of the funeral sector, whereby any business wishing to operate within the United Kingdom would be required to be in membership of a trade association operating a strictly monitored Code of Practice and a robust and independent client redress scheme.

Looking ahead to Wednesday (ITV, 10.35) there will be facts and there will be context. Let’s not generalise. The upside of a bloody awful mess like this is that it offers an opportunity to put things right. Cool heads and warm hearts  are called for. 

Undertaker chic

24 September 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Dress codes

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Autumn/winter 2012/13 fashions are in the stores and Downton Abbey is back on TV for another series. Black is often a fashion favourite for the cooler seasons, but when black is coupled with Dowtonesque, Edwardian styling, the trend takes on a distinctly funereal look.

The mood continues into interiors trends with cool greys replacing warm taupes as the colour du jour. A reflection of the collective psyche in these difficult economic times? Colour psychologist Karen Haller says: ‘If we are anxious or nervous we may also turn to grey to feel calm, which is quite an extreme way to do it as it can be so draining without any support’. 

The Good Funeral Guide
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