Archive: 2011

Lords of all they survey

5 April 2011
Charles
23 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, Co-operative Funeralcare

We may worry about societal death denial and a consequent tolerance of poor funerals but there’s no denying we’re not, most of us who work in the death zone, much cop at getting society to sit up and take notice of what we think. It’s rare that we come across a serious treatment of death and funerals in the media.

Who’s us? Well, the Good Funeral Guide for starters. I’m useless at playing media tart. By my defiant tone you can easily see that I am making a virtue of a shortcoming. I have no excuse. Is the Natural Death Centre making many waves at the moment? Green fuse? SAIF? SAIF likes to hide its dynamite under a bushel. What about the secular celebrant organisations, the BHA, the IoCF, the AOIC? They are admirably placed to pump out survey results about favourite poems, trends in dress codes, top tunes, that sort of and stuff. If any group needs to demonstrate the emotional value of a funeral it’s them. I’m surprised they don’t do more. And by more I mean anything.

There are some in the death biz who do manage to tickle the fancy of the media. Avalon Funeral Plans recently scored a hit with a survey (it’s always a survey) purporting to show that women reckon themselves past it at 29 while men don’t throw in the towel til they’re 58. Does anyone actually believe this nonsense?

If you’re looking to place a good funeral story, what do the journos look for? The wacky and the scandalous. You’ll never go wrong by underestimating them. Your pitch will fall on deaf ears if you aim high or even medium.

The abysmal Dying Matters recently scored a bit of a hit by proclaiming the results of a Marie Curie survey showing that most men want to die having sex. The story went on to show that actually only 18 per cent of men want to die having sex but hey, let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good headline. Do 18 per cent of men really want to die having sex? It depends how you ask the question, doesn’t it? That’s the knack of running a survey. Skew the questions so you get the answers you want.

The big undertakers don’t like to see themselves in headlines. The only stuff Dignity wants published is in the financial pages where only their shareholders can read it. Big undertakers prefer to pretend to be lots of little undertakers.

Except for the biggest, of course. Co-operative Funeralcare wants us to think it’s ethical and progressive and caring etc. By jingo, we must take off our hats to them. If anyone can dress up old news or no news as new news, it’s Funeralcare. And they’ve done it again. They’ve got a new survey out. It shows that funeral processions are forever being cut in on and sworn at by angry motorists; no one’s got any respect any more . Did you know that? How long have you known it? Here’s a typical account.

The really ingenious thing about this survey is that it’s broken down into regions and it quotes Co-op FDs from everywhere in the country, so the story has hit both the nationals and all the local papers. Fabulous free advertising all conjured up from nothing by cunning PR people. Huge success.

My anxiety is that the Co-op will soon run out of things to survey. If you can think of something for them to do next, please do leave a helpful comment.

As for the rest of us, isn’t it time we got our act together?

Meet Angeline Gragasin and Caitlin Doughty

5 April 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, crematoria, Death; Good death, direct cremation, Embalming, funeral directors

I know a number of you drop in around this time (10.30 am) hoping there may be a new post because you need a little light displacement activity. Well, I’ve got you something that’s anything but little and light. Two short films here by Angeline Gragasin starring/narrated by Caitlin Doughty “documenting the life of a mortuary professional as she sets out to revolutionize the death industry one corpse at a time.”

The Ecstasy of Decay is a series of original videos produced by The Universal Order of the Good Death. The title comes from the concept that there is beauty in the human corpse doing what it is meant to: decompose, rot, decay, etc. Caitlin and Angeline will continue to create these videos throughout 2011 with the help of members of the funeral industry and other dedicated members of the Order.

Wonderful work here. I hope you will enjoy and admire them as much as I did. Find more of Angeline Gragasin’s work here.

ECSTASY OF DECAY №1: Your Mortician from Angeline Gragasin on Vimeo.

ECSTASY OF DECAY №2: The American Corpse from Angeline Gragasin on Vimeo.

On whose authority (2)

4 April 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funeral directors

Back on 1 Feb 2010 I wrote a post which began: It’s an interesting fact that a funeral director can go to a hospital mortuary and collect a dead person to bring back to their funeral home on the verbal instruction of that dead person’s executor. It attracted a lively discussion. You can read it all here.

I have just had an email which sets things out according to the understanding of someone who works in a mortuary. I am very grateful to this person for taking so much time to do this for us. It is so cogent I decided at once to post it. The writer of what follows did not see the comments on the original post because when this blog was transmigrated from Blogger the comments did not come with it. I have just copied and pasted the comments from Blogger.  Here goes:

I came across your page while doing a work-related search.  In the first article on page https://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/category/funeral-directors/page/4/ there are a number of incorrect facts.  I’m aware this page is a year old, but as it is still appearing in search results, I thought it might be helpful if I highlighted them for you.

First, it is not true now, nor was it when you posted that blog entry that a funeral director can turn up at any mortuary to collect a deceased body without written authorisation.  There have, in the past, been a few exceptions to this, and on the request of some families there may still be exceptions, but the vast majority of NHS hospitals and public mortuaries will require sight of a copy of the registrar’s “green” certificate (which has to be provided to the FD by the person who has registered the death), or a copy of the CR6 (issued by the coroner to the FD as instructed by the NOK), and in addition most require a release form or (as they’ve now been renamed) a Transfer of Care form, signed by the person making the funeral arrangements (normally the executor or NOK.  Any mortuary which does not ask for such forms is working outside the code of practice issued by the AAPT(uk) – the professional body for mortuary workers.

Your other contributor on that page refers to a “NHS Mortician”.  Mortician is an American term which usually refers to a funeral director, and most mortuary workers see this as a derogatory term.  People working in the NHS mortuaries are generally known as Anatomical Pathology Technologists, Mortuary Technicians, Mortuary Porters, Pathology Technicians or other derivative of these terms, depending on their trust’s policy.  Reputable mortuary workers will be known as APTs, and will be registered with the AAPT to ensure good practice and common standards of conduct.  The AAPT are normally very willing to answer questions of professional conduct when contacted.

In the case of your contributors comment, which is unfortunate to say the least, there is a problem for us all which is not highlighted.

The clothing which was removed with the deceased in a plastic bag, and was retained with the deceased for burial would – if it had been removed from the deceased – be classed as clinical waste.  Any sheet, shroud, clothing, or property which is soiled from having been in contact with the body is classed as such, and is therefore subject to certain restrictions.  Any such waste we dispose of from our premises, has to be collected by a licensed contractor and disposed of appropriately.  We are not licensed, and therefore not permitted to move clinical waste, even between our own branches!  In the case of soiled clothing, there is a grey area.  On the one hand, it is always preferable to return property to the deceased’s family.  On the other, removing it from the deceased makes it clinical waste, and we may be committing an offence simply by allowing that family to transport those possessions home.  In doing so may inadvertently cause a health hazard to them and others, which nobody would want.

Hospitals will normally discus the property they hold with the deceased when the executor/NOK comes to obtain the medical certificate, and most FDs (well the good ones anyway) will ask when the funeral arrangements are made.  Where clothing is concerned, if we get any from the mortuary, we ask the family what they want done with it, and we advise them of its condition so that they can make an informed decision. Other FDs may take the view that it is safer and better practice simply to dispose of the clothing to avoid the potential problems and possible distress caused to family.

News blossom

4 April 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Tweets

Here’s a wee roundup of the week’s stories in tweets. All good stuff.

 

Hannah Rumble and Douglas Davies on burial rites and natural burial. Podcasts – http://bit.ly/e6Lflt

 

Funeral Party (it’s a noisy band – not my thing, maybe your thing) –http://nyp.st/fl1D1z

 

The utter ignorance of funeral consumers almost matched here by a very stupid journo. Jumping gibberish! – http://bit.ly/ih5vkl

 

Another swimming pool to be heated by blazing corpses – as the nonsensemongers would have it : http://bit.ly/gDwNmN

 

We have a new hero and her name is Sharon Voice –http://bit.ly/easkMd

 

Illicit open-air cremation? An intriguing photo – http://flic.kr/p/9tMowS

 

All the year round at Sun Rising nbg – one of my favourites –http://bit.ly/hGdjv0

 

Nice climate, great demographic. Meet the ex-pats’ undertaker, an opp that’s been begging for ages – http://bit.ly/e5GE4c

 

Extremes of scurrility here, clearly written by an industry insider, and the more interesting for that – http://bit.ly/gdzKN4

 

funeral_ideas Sentiment – Louise RT by GoodFunerals

http://bit.ly/dXYoOi 17 year olds murdered body taken to football match

 

Red faces at the Co-op as it fesses up to leaking 83,000 customer details. Third party blamed – http://bit.ly/iezuCh

 

Yet another cemetery stripped of grieving bling. Crass! –http://bit.ly/gyVqpc

 

Quality of life, value of life and when do I let my baby die? Thoughtful and rigorous piece here – http://bit.ly/e2sw9t

 

Co-op the first in the country to launch a ‘nationally recognised qualification’ – an NVQ. Gnn!?? What price a Dip FD?http://bit.ly/eoNlYN

 

Co-op employee, 11 yrs loyal service, sacked for drinking the wrong sort of tea – http://bit.ly/fTcU6a

 

Odd politics: the Damned Co-op wants to buy Bretby crem in the teeth of Lab opposition. Workers unite! – http://bit.ly/eZjKa4

 

Behind the scenes in a US funeral home – photo essay :http://nyti.ms/grRLZE

 

morbidanatomy Joanna RT by GoodFunerals

I love this so much: The Lennon Sisters singing Dry Bones, The Lawrence Welk Show, 1965 http://bit.ly/dDYmZp

 

No gas at the crem so Zimbabwe man burns father on a pyre –http://n.pr/hJKVxA

 

Nice account here of a West Indian funeral – http://bit.ly/dXdO3m

 

Skull earrings. V droll – http://bit.ly/h4CbaL

 

Should this woman have let her children visit their dying granddad?http://bit.ly/dYfvFn

 

Don’t eat and grieve – it ain’t dignified : http://bit.ly/gPZYnb

 

Ray Biddiss’ trike hearse in action – http://bit.ly/eOT0g2

 

China to regulate funeral industry and help poor families. Catch-up time for the UK? http://bit.ly/hpOWLb

 

Very good home funeral piece here. Reinvented in the UK and now deplorably moribund. Why? – http://bit.ly/gZBJl0

 

Police douse corpse in mid-cremation and bang up wife and son –http://bit.ly/gO2x6g

 

World’s weirdest funeral procession? The Burial of the Sardine. Fab! – http://bit.ly/eE1Ccg

 

Beltane fires and funeral pyres. Confusing. http://bit.ly/eXKBJT

 

‘There is an argument that we should be more familiar with the topic of our ultimate demise.’ Nice one, Mariella – http://bit.ly/eldgEl

 

davidschneider David Schneider RT by GoodFunerals

Some terrible, terrible part of me keeps wondering whether Eddie Stobart’s coffin will be green with his name down the side.

 

Its_Death Steve Death RT by GoodFunerals

How sad. The inventor of superglue has died *Sniff*

 

RT @TheFamilyPlot: Witness to a Native American funeral – a report on the graveside ritual for Tu Moonwalkerhttp://wp.me/pBD55-Do

 

Smart new survey from Funeralcare. No news in it but news enough for lazy journos who do stories from press releases –http://bit.ly/hipqlR

Review: Your Digital Afterlife

4 April 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Digital will, Good books

You wait and wait for a great book to come along. Unlike buses, great books don’t come along four at once. They are as single as they are singular. Today’s great book is Your Digital Afterlife.

There have been sporadic lightweight journalistic treatments of the growing importance of making provision for our virtual assets. I last had a look at some as far back, I am now ashamed to say, as November 2009. But, I have just learned, I belong to the nether end of the Boomer generation (46-64 yrs), and we Boomers are far from internet-savvy. Compared with the Millennial Generation (18-29 yrs), 80% of whom texted in the last 24 hrs and 20% of whom have posted videos of themselves online, just 35% of my crew texted in the last 24 hrs and but 2% of us have uploaded videos. Yikes the world is moving from physical to virtual very fast indeed.

Where all assets were once physical, except for lingering memories, now they are increasingly digital. The most obvious examples are letters, documents, music and photos. There’s more.

“Will future generations have less attachment to physical objects?” What an interesting idea. Physical objects are unique, but “one of the unique features of digital things is that two exact copies can exist or one copy can be accessed in multiple places at one time.” Had we only physical assets, they’d be divvied up, some thrown away, and our identity fragmented. Digital assets can be bequeathed complete – to more than just one person.

The law presently regards assets only as physical assets. How do we make sure these endure?

Your Digital Afterlife wants to persuade us of the necessity so, first, it makes the case. Our digital assets are identity-defining: “All this content forms a rich collection that reflects who you are and what you think.” Much of this content may be interactive – comments on your Facebook status “reflecting on your identity”; your comments on others. Future generations will be able to see us as we saw ourselves and as others saw us.

So rich is this content that there’s now “a huge opportunity that’s never been available to ordinary people – a permanent archive of your life that could exist beyond your physical life.” So great is the amount of our content that the authors call on us to curate it. With photos, for example, don’t just leave 10,000 – no one will know where to start. Whittle them down, grade them and tag them.

This is all so new that “as a society we have not thought through the ramifications or considered what will happen to this digital content.”

What’s more, a great deal of this digital content does not reside in our devices (computer, phone, etc), it is stored by businesses which can deny others access – or go bust. What’s more, most of these companies’ terms of service do not make provision for our content on our death. They never thought of it. Here is a matter which needs urgently to be addressed: “Ideally services that host digital content would have an industry-standard or legally enforced way to deal with the death of their members.” It will happen.

In the meantime, we need to appoint a digital executor with the technical nous to enable them to gather up and pass on our digital legacy – having, perhaps, got rid of specified content we’d rather others knew nothing of.

To enable our digital executor to do his or her work, we need to make an inventory of our devices and accounts – on a spreadsheet we can download from the YourDigitalAfterlife website. Meticulous instructions are given.

The book concludes with a speculative look into the future. Is it possible, they wonder, if, one day, artificial intelligence will become so sophisticated that it will be possible to process our store of digital content and create a humanoid robot in our own image?

Your Digital Afterlife is beautifully written – clear, jargon-free, accessible. Its tone is just right, too, companionable, not jokey and joshing nor loftily authoritative. It is both philosophical and practical. It has opened up a new and important field to me.

I have given you but a taster. I urge you to buy it.

And don’t hold your breath for the next book review on this blog.

Bonus culture

2 April 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

If you are out celebrating this weekend, spare a toast to the lucky managers of Co-operative Funeralcare, who have just banked their annual bonuses.

For those in Bands 3 and 4, that’s £2,500 — £5,000.

For those in Bands 1 and 2, who are on a long-term incentive plan, that’s serious moolah.

The Good Funeral Guide salutes all those hardworking families who have made this possible.

Your Digital Afterlife

2 April 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Digital will

I bought a copy of Your Digital Afterlife as soon as it came out, some weeks ago. Since then, it has been sitting on the bookshelf reproachful and unread — the next worst thing to a stack of ironing. I’ve just made a start. It’s blinking BRILLIANT.

It’s an important area this. Where we once possessed only physical things we now possess a great many digital assets which, when we die, will become inaccessible unless we make arrangements to pass them on.

I’ll write more about this excellent book next week. Until then, savour this fantastic website, DigitalEstateServices.com. I wish I’d been able to recommend it when I met a just-bereaved widow whose husband’s computer carried all his financial records. It was password protected, as, of course, were all his accounts. I dread to think how much she was unable to lay claim to. The good people at DigitalEstateServices.com could have unlocked it all for her.

Find the Your Digital Afterlife website here.

Find DigitalEstateServices.com here.

Nice guys finish first

30 March 2011
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

Celebrants gain all the important insights into funeral directors which are denied to clients. We get to find out what they’re really like, why they do it and whether they really care.

So here’s a tip for all funeral consumers. When your celebrant has been to see you, and you’ve had that nice long chat (tears and laughter, laughter and tears) and planned the funeral ceremony, as you stand on the doorstep, ask: “Are you off to see the undertaker now?”

If the answer’s yes, you picked a good un. (Chances are higher that it’ll be a no.)

As a celebrant you finish your chat with a family with a full, possibly bursting, heart and a need to unpack it. Your partner may not necessarily be the person who’ll welcome the spilled contents. The natural person to splurge to is the person who has already got to know and feel for the family – the undertaker or (dire job title) arranger.

But most aren’t the slightest bit interested in what you have to share. They got what they needed to know in the arrangement meeting; the rest is logistics. And that’s why, as Rupert tartly pointed out a little while ago, they deliberately miss funerals. Simply not interested. In people.

I’m lucky that the client I am working for at the moment has a brilliant funeral director. I leave my client’s house (heart bursting, etc) and drive straight to Judi where we talk, exchange insights and, collaboratively, strive to create a great funeral. We learn from each other and feel good about what we do.

John Hall’s daughter Aimee recently ‘did an arrangement’ with a family. Aimee’s arrangements always last as long as they need – a whole morning is not unusual. They talk about anything and everything and, almost incidentally, Aimee logs what she needs to know. On this occasion she jotted down the very incidental if not totally irrelevant fact that the favourite colour of the woman who had died was green. But it enabled John to kit his crew out in green ties for the big day. The family, having completely forgotten that they had given away this ‘secret’, were astounded and, of course, overjoyed.

Down at Exeter and District Funeral Services, David Albery gathered that a person who had died loved cows. David, too, loves cows; he’s been milking them since the age of 8. So he brought down his collection of ceramic cows and arranged them in his chapel of rest for the viewing. The family was enchanted – and amazed, of course.

Little touches – such a difference. A good funeral director’s most satisfying moments.

Given that a funeral director can learn so much and do their job so much better by giving clients time and sharing thoughts and information with celebrants, it is extraordinary that more don’t do it. Delighted families are free and voluble advertisers. They make you money.

Yesterday afternoon, over a cup of tea, I conducted a survey of 100,000 people nationwide*. I asked what, for them, is the most important attribute of a funeral director. Here’s the result:

Great body prep: 1 (ex-funeral director)
Lovely premises: 3
Smart Victorianalike attire: 4
Fab fleet: 8
Really, really nice person: 99, 984

The only part of a funeral director’s work that calls for exceptional cleverness is exploring the wants and needs of clients – the human interaction, the empathy thing. And yet this is one task that most, if they’re big enough, pass off, often to partially trained part-timers – with an instruction that it shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.

Why on earth would you want to downgrade and delegate that part of your work which is of the greatest mutual value?

*Of course I didn’t. What difference would it have made?

Well, it’s been a quiet week…

28 March 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Tweets

It really has been a very quiet week in Funeralworld. Here are the choice cuts.

 

Peter the Wild Boy, never tamed, buried at Northchurch, Herts –http://bit.ly/gqRr3k

 

Green Burial Council code of standards. This is brand new, yes?http://bit.ly/geljsE

 

That eminently postponable problem: what to do with the ashes? Lovely piece here – http://bit.ly/dHYAyD

 

Funerals for missing tsunami victims may ‘use another family’s bone chips or ashes as a stand-in.’ Fascinating –http://lat.ms/dVpatZ

 

Is a small religious minority trying to dictate everyone’s end of life options? http://ht.ly/4lNaM #DeathwithDignity #VTleg #VTgov #VT

 

‘Since a Catholic funeral is an act of worship, it goes without saying that it is not a form of entertainment.’ – http://bit.ly/gWsDsb

 

RT @GrievingDads: “The Mourner’s Bill of Rights”http://wp.me/pVxlX-6W@StNeotsFunerals

 

No service by request. In lieu of flowers, take some time to walk in the sunshine and stop to smell the roses – http://bit.ly/esRcoh

 

beachwordsmith Brian Jenner RT by GoodFunerals

Some things may never happen, this one will http://bit.ly/eZcaLs

 

The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo – Richard Burton’s favourite poem, read at Liz Taylor’s funeral. Text: http://bit.ly/dCsMwS

 

‘The passing years are taking a toll. Black streaks of mold creep up the satin sheet.’ Marcos still unburied. http://bit.ly/hITeJx

 

Women’s ‘superiority in the empathy department ‘ makes them better undertakers. Yes? http://bit.ly/gDg3UW

 

The part marijuana can play in palliative care – http://bit.ly/hZVLOs

 

The difference between nursing home and prison is that you have marginally less chance of being sexually violated. http://bit.ly/fnOGcr

 

matthiasrascher Matthias Rascher RT by GoodFunerals

Weird photos of James Dean posing in a coffin. http://bit.ly/gktzNy#JamesDean #weird

 

Funeral food OK so long as the corpse can’t see it –http://bit.ly/f9NZeW

 

Post-tsunami funerals, Japan

24 March 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral customs

Here’s a fascinating tsunami-aftermath story in the Los Angeles Times. It examines this predicament: how do you mark a death in tradition-bound Japan with no body to cremate?

One survivor, Shoichi Nakamura, has lost her brother. The lack of a body makes it difficult to have a proper osoushiki, or funeral ceremony, Nakamura said. Instead of using the remains of her brother and his family, she may have to use another family’s bone chips or ashes as a stand-in. The Buddhist priests have declared that an acceptable alternative, she said.

“I hear city hall may give them out,” she said.

Other options include collective ceremonies known as godousou, or cremation of the clothes, photographs or personal items of the deceased in lieu of a body. Even a pinch of dirt from the spot the dead were last seen may have to do.

“Many people will have to do this,” said Souichiro Tachibana, 50, a teacher at an evacuation center in Miyako. “Even though it may not be your exact relation, what’s important is to believe it is, for peace of mind. This is the last choice, but what can you do?”

Japan did something similar during World War II when large numbers of Japanese troops died overseas. The government would distribute sticks to the grieving families, saying they were from the war zone, said Shinya Yamada, assistant professor at Tokyo’s National Museum of Japanese History. “But who knows if it’s true?” he said.

Read the entire article here.

And there’s a good post on the same subject over at the excellent Death Reference Desk, here.