Florist of the Year

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Debbie Western

Debbie has a particular personal passion and an unrivalled gift for creating floral displays for funerals. She has supplied flowers for the sendoffs of celebrities.

In an outstanding field, Debbie stands out because funeral flowers are her specialism. This is a matter of personal predilection rather than business opportunism: what Debbie loves most is creating floral tributes to people who have died. Her reputation for excellence has spread. Among recent celebrity clients she counts the late David Gest. Although she didn’t know she was creating the floral tributes for his funeral when she received the order, it was only when she delivered them that she found out.

Based in Rotherhithe, East London, Debbie works at the heart of a community that still believes in a proper sendoff – with banks of flowers. She recently supplied flower arrangements for the funeral of Bermondsey undertaker Barry Albin-Dyer. People love what she does. A characteristic testimonial sent to the judges reads: “The arrangement was SO impressive that a member of public en route called through the window and said how beautiful it looked!!!!!”

Debbie has been working with flowers for over 40 years. For 25 of them she was Head of Floristry at Southwark College.

Runners up in this category: Flowers by Susan, Inspired Flower Design & Tuckshop Flowers

Good news for Dignity shareholders

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Bereaved families in the Oxford area may be a little less pleased to know that the cost of having a relative cremated at their local Dignity owned crematorium will be £999 from next week onwards.

Just a short journey towards London, a cremation at South West Middlesex Crematorium will cost £490 (source Funeralbooker report on UK Cremation Costs here).

We wonder whether it is just Oxford, or all 43 Dignity owned and operated crematoria that are hiking up their prices?

Quoting from Dignity’s Annual Reports & Accounts 2015:

We are the largest single operator of crematoria in Britain with a growing portfolio of well-established and state of the art crematoria that meet the needs of the local communities we serve. In 2015, we carried out 57,700 cremations representing 9.8 per cent of total estimated deaths in Britain”

57,000 x £999…… just under £56 million according to the GFG intern who was a whizz at maths.

Funeral poverty anyone?

 

The Good Funeral Guide
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