2 March 2016 – The Good Funeral Guide

Death with Dignity plc

Dignity has just published its results for the 52 week period ending 25 December 2015. You can study them here.

Headline figures for readers of this blog are:

Profit per funeral: £1045 – a margin of almost 42%. This was in spite of the fact that: “Approximately 24 per cent of the funerals performed in the year (2014: 23 per cent) had previously been prearranged. This proportion is anticipated to continue to increase over time. Whilst these funerals represent substantially lower average revenue per funeral, their incremental nature means they are a positive contributor to the Group’s performance.”

Profit per cremation: £600 – a margin of nearly 63%

Our thanks to our number-cruncher for doing the math. The figures above are calculated by dividing underlying operating profit by the number of funerals/cremations carried out. The GFG team congratulates Dignity plc on what appears to be another robust performance.

Over to you!

We recently wrote to BBC R4’s Last Word programme suggesting they include more ordinary people – local heroes, we called them – here.

We said: “The stories of those of our fellow-citizens who have lived and struggled and won some and lost some are moving and inspiring. All priests and funeral celebrants know this, as do many undertakers. Every day their life-stories are recounted in crematoria and churches and at gravesides up and down the land, and what stories they are. They celebrate the extraordinariness of ordinary people.”

The producer of Last Word agrees and would like the GFG community to help him out. Here’s what he said:

Dear Mr Cowling,

In answer to your comment I agree, we should do more ordinary people, (whatever that may constitute) and we do try to; take the case of Mick Murphy the cycling brick layer for example.

I believe that for an obituary to be featured on Last Word there must be a story, and the story must be either entertaining or moving in some way, and that is not easy with both the famous and lesser known people.

You may imagine that we have vast resources at the BBC but sadly we do not – in fact it is just me – and often we are dependent on listeners for suggesting people, ordinary or not, to appear on the programme.

I do hope that you will suggest people to me in the future, I cannot promise anything but I will always do my best to oblige.

Spread the word!

Kindest regards

Neil George
Producer BBC Last Word.
Broadcasting House,
Portland Place,
London, W1A 1AA