“That Funeral Director on your local High Street that looks like a trustworthy and caring family run business probably isn’t…this is an unregulated world in desperate need of reform.”
Fair comment?
You can read the ITV news http://www.honeytraveler.com/buy-propecia/account of the programme here.
All responses welcome — we practise no censorship here. Please do not make a statement that might be libellous; the GFG will be sued for publishing it.
A burglar is engaged in his work of ransacking a chapel wherein lies a dead person awaiting their funeral. He is disturbed, mid-rampage, by the arrival of the undertaker coming to get everything ready for the service. The burglar, panicked, attempts to climb into the coffin…
What happens next? Read the unlikely, unsavoury and true story over at Wales Online.
Overheard at the Joy of Death convention: “I wish all these conventional funeral directors weren’t here, I think this event should only be for progressives.” My heart sank. We don’t need another postcode gang in Funeralworld. It’s beginning to feel like Peckham.
Name-calling, in-fighting, backstabbing. Somebody ought to do something about it.
And scapegoating. There are those who are wondering who exactly it was who set ITV onto the scent of Funeral Partners and, specifically, Gillman’s. Fingers have been pointed at the ‘greens’.
We have itched to feature one of these treacherous, alternative green undertakers who unaccountably know better than investigative journalists where to look for plague and pestilence in the industry.
Every time we receive a report of a sighting we set out like eager twitchers to pin down the exotic renegade and put the searing questions: “How do you know so much? What’s your beef?”
When we get there we find a decent, modest person who meets bereaved people where they are and accompanies them to where they want to go. If anything distinguishes them it is not their militancy but their emotional intelligence. Most anti-climactic of all, they do lots of ‘traditional’ funerals — but don’t think of them that way. Try as you may, the only label you can pin on them is ‘good’
As to this evening’s documentary (ITV1, 10.35), if you’re wondering who the stool pigeons are, don’t. Put yourself in the researchers’ shoes. You want to get an undercover guy into a little independent? “Sorry mate, no jobs here.”
So you target the businesses with staff turnover.
Marilyn Watts died at 4.30 in the morning on Tuesday. She had been suffering from cancer.
Well known to many in the world of funerals, she was Anne Barber’s right-hand person at Civil Ceremonies and was instrumental, together with Anne and Professor Tony Walter, in creating a pioneering training programme for funeral celebrants designed to meet the needs of those families who want “a funeral driven by the wishes, beliefs and values of the deceased and their family, not by the beliefs or ideology of the person conducting the funeral.”
Wry, dry, tell-it-as-it-is; incredibly hardworking; inexhaustibly supportive; immensely warm-hearted and affectionate.
Go safe, Marilyn. Our love goes with you. We hold in our thoughts all those closest to you, especially Cliff.
Marilyn’s funeral will be on 12 October (Friday) at around 2.00pm. Finalised details to follow.
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
As both mother of a son with learning disabilities and also Professor of Psychiatry of Disability at St George’s, University of London, Baroness Hollins is well qualified to be founder and editor of the Books Beyond Words series, which communicates through pictures difficult messages to people with learning disabilities, including the topics of death and sex.
Am I Going to Die? tells the story of John, who is terminally ill, and deals with physical deterioration and emotional aspects of dying. The pictures highlight the importance of going on special outings, of remembering good times, and of saying goodbye to family and friends.
Other titles include When Mum Died and When Dad Died, which take a gentle and straightforward approach to grief in the family. The approach is non-denominational, and one illustrates a burial and another a cremation.
More info here.
Barnet funeral experts are unsurprised by news that London is the most expensive place in the country to die.
Emma Sargant, Director of Churchills Family Funeral Directors in East Barnet Road said: “I haven’t put my prices up since 2008.”
However, Barry Broad of Brooks Funerals in Church Hill Road said there are options for people. He said: “Funerals are expensive but we specialise in low cost funerals and our customers say that we are about half the price of the bigger funeral directors.”
We suppose that the story is similar throughout Britain. Funeral costs double more or less every ten years, so Ms Sargant has taken a heck of a hit.
Yes, there’s a recession on. And third-party costs have risen faster than funeral directors’ charges, especially the cost of cremation. But is that the whole story?
The GFG is inclined to encourage funeral directors to audit the value of the funerals they sell — emotional value. Give your clients more time. Work with them to achieve a better end result.
We suspect that people would be prepared to pay more if they got more from the experience. After all, they’re still forking out for weddings.