A friend was in a minicab when he leaned over and gently tapped the driver on the shoulder. The cabbie screamed, lost control of the car, drove over the kerb and stopped inches from a large plate glass window.
The driver said “I’m so sorry but you scared me”.
My shaken friend apologised.
The driver replied “It’s entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab — for the previous 25 years I drove a hearse!”
Hat-tip to Jean Francis and Chris Dudzinska
Hardly anyone buying a funeral pauses to consider whether or not an undertaker is formally trained. Consumers are trusting people. They suppose that he or she is. Well, it ain’t necessarily so.
Training for funeral directors is presently in something of a dark, even unstable, place. The foundation degree course at the University of Bath is to be discontinued. Numbers of applicants for the Diploma in Funeral Directing (Dip Fd) are falling. There’s been a falling out between two providers, the NAFD and the BIFD. The NAFD course is under review. Meanwhile, the independent funeral directors’ trade body SAIF offers some training through its virtual college, the Independent Funeral Directors College.
There’ll never be a consensus about whether or not a Dip FD is worth having; a great many funeral directors reckon not, for reasons good and bad. Some say the training’s not good enough, others that you learn on the job. But an unregulated industry has to look to itself in this matter. If it is to rebuff criticism of its resistance of regulation it needs to demonstrate that regulation is unnecessary. One of the best ways of doing so is to be able to point to high levels of industry training.
As repositories of industry codes of conduct, the NAFD and SAIF might be reckoned to be the best bodies to roll out training courses at all levels. It has been suggested that this is the reverse of truth, but we can’t pin down why. Perhaps someone will tell us.
We have been aware of outsiders surveying the funeral industry recently with an eye to supplying the sort of training that forward-looking funeral directors need. There’s a pretty broad consensus that there is a business opportunity here, with the potential for considerable benefit to the industry. Dip FD courses have been strong on mechanics, less so on those areas of the job requiring emotional intelligence, a quality in greater demand now than ever. We get too many complaints here at the GFG about rotten customer service. Down at the undertaker’s that becomes ‘total lack of empathy’. We had one on the phone yesterday (complaining about the People’s Undertaker, you guessed).
Just when we were wondering what would happen next, along comes Green Fuse together with the newly-formed Chester Pearce Associates offering their own Dip FD course. At first glance it looks a bit heavy on mechanics: “Caring for the body and mortuary practice – Removals from different places – Dressing and presenting for viewing – Safe handling and health and safety” but industry insiders will probably reckon these to be hallmarks of credibility. Less reassuring may be that the course is not externally accredited. But Green Fuse has an excellent track record as a training provider with an emphasis on developing emotional intelligence. They are well placed to offer themselves to the industry. If this leads to competition among training providers, that would seem, from the consumer point of view, to be no bad thing. Can’t see the NAFD and SAIF having much time for it. Strategically they need to occupy the high ground; they need to be the go-to people. But Green Fuse has always handled the politics of the industry graciously and with good manners. They have the potential to do well.
Enough from us. Find out more here.
Let us know what you think.
Thanks!
Age UK (formerly Help the Aged) has issued a grovelling press release in the wake of the FSA investigation into HSBC and its subsidiary NHFA, which between 2005-10 missold bonds to cover long-term care costs. Clients, average age 83, were recommended to invest for 5 years — longer than they were expected to live. Under the circumstances, an ISA or a higher fixed interest rate savings account would have been a much better option. The FSA has fined HSBC £10.5 million, and NHFA is expected to foot a compensation bill for £29.3 million.
Says Age UK:
“Help the Aged had a relationship with the Nursing Home Fees Agency from 2003 until 2009 in which it acted as an introducer for the NHFA . The NHFA also ran a care home fees advice line and offered an equity release product on behalf of Help the Aged.
“Help the Aged did not advise potential customers or have any input in investment decisions. The contract was reviewed as part of the Age UK merger process and it was decided to terminate the contract.
“NHFA were a major adviser in the area of funding care home fees and were trusted by many including Help the Aged. We are urgently reviewing the findings to see if today’s announcement affects Help the Aged customers and how we can help them access compensation from HSBC, NHFA’s parent company.”
The vulnerability of well-meaning charities to the blandishments of sociopath financial product salespeople is a matter of concern. Earlier this year Eulogy Magazine exposed an unhealthy relationship between Sue Ryder and King’s Court Trust – here.
While it is still in the throes of repentant self-flagellation we express the earnest hope that Age UK will uncouple itself from Dignity funeral plans.
Age UK Funeral Plans
4 King Edwards Court
King Edwards Square
Sutton Coldfield,
West Midlands B73 6AP
Dignity Funerals Ltd,
4 King Edwards Court,
King Edward Square,
Sutton Coldfield,
West Midlands, B73 6AP
Over on Inspiration and Chai Bronnie Ware describes how, working in palliative care, she would often find herself listening to people’s regrets – all the things they wished they had done in their lives. Some common themes emerged. This is her top five:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
Bronnie’s written a book based on her experiences. You can find it here.
There’s no beating around the bush here: funeral pricing must be more transparent.
Most funeral directors are careful, honest and, often, painfully aware of the costs that people face when someone dies.
They run businesses, but know that they are also offering a service that affects people’s well being at the deepest levels. For the best FD every death is more than a transaction, it is also an event that they become a partner in, sharing, with the people involved, some of the intensity of the occasion.
Sometimes this makes them bad businesspeople (and better human beings?). We all know of Funeral Directors who reduce or waive fees for children’s funerals for example.
But there are others who are less scrupulous, willing to pass uneccessary costs on to the customer. This is bad – obviously – for customers, but it is bad for people who work with Funeral Directors too.
We’ve heard, for example, of surcharges added to celebrant’s fees or ‘adminstrative’ charges for booking unusual services or vehicles. Understandable you may say, but in one instance the surcharge raised the cost of the service from £650 to £1,000.
The worst part is that these add ons are rarely declared to the customer. Instead the itemised bill simply states the total cost. It must be great to be able to blame someone else for your own high charges.
Here at GFG we believe sunlight is the best disinfectant and that means being open and upfront about what you are charging. Watch this space.
By Richard Rawlinson
Our host has suggested I write a post on the ‘extra-rational power of ritual’ – extra-rational being the function of the brain termed our imagination as opposed to the function that’s purely rational; ritual being the act of sanctifying actions – even ordinary actions – so that they have meaning.
To sanctify, of course, means to regard to be holy, to set apart to sacred use. In non-faith terms, the extra-rational power of ritual takes on a different meaning. The rituals are not sanctified in the holy sense, but they are nevertheless actions loaded with symbolism, set apart from the ordinary.
For example, both religious and non-religious can say: ‘I light a candle because I need the light or because the candle represents the light I need’. In our imagination, the candle’s flame can symbolise God’s light of hope; or Life itself; or an individual’s life, its beginning or its end.
In both religious and non-religious circles, there’s the danger that rituals lose their meaning and shift to the realm of the ordinary. Without thoughtfulness of purpose, a ritual becomes a mere habit, whether it’s receiving the Holy Eucharist at the Sacrament of the Mass, or sending a birthday card to mark a loved one’s rite of passage.
Thoughtfulness of purpose makes powerful what would otherwise be an everyday activity. The shift in consciousness imbues our actions with a special kind of energy.
So the potency of rituals is clearly in the eye of the beholder. For some, they’re beautiful and comforting as symbols, but devoid of magic. Others, whether pagan or monotheistic faithful, believe certain rituals take on miraculous powers, mysteriously forming a gateway to grace or enlightenment. Some sneer at this as mumbo-jumbo, others see it as plumbing their deepest, multi-dimensional selves to discover hidden truths about our being, and the spiritual meaning of life.
If this is to lead to developing any debate about secular funeral ritual (See here) it is for secularists to take up the mantle.
It might be useful to revisit BBC Radio 4’s Points of View by philosopher John Gray, publicised and linked to here.
Gray dismisses the assumption held by the likes of Richard Dawkins that human thought has advanced through a series of stages, starting with magic and religion and culminating in science’s rule by universal laws.
‘The idea that religion is a relic of primitive thinking strikes me as incredibly primitive,’ he says. ‘In most religions… belief has never been particularly important. Practice, ritual, meditation, a way of life is what counts. What practitioners believe is secondary if it matters at all’.
While I personally do believe in God and the Catholic Mass (control yourselves, usual suspects), I understand where Gray is coming from when he adds that when atheists ‘attack religion they’re assuming that religion is… a body of beliefs that needs to be given a rational justification’.
He is effectively giving hope to meaningful secularist ritual by saying you don’t have to believe a ritual is true in order to use it. Art and poetry aren’t about establishing facts; and even the latest scientific consensus can turn out to be riddled with error. Ritual tells us something about ourselves that can’t be captured in scientific theories – ‘the ‘ancient myths we inherit from religion are far more truthful than the stories the modern world tells about itself’.
About ten years ago I had just introduced Father Thomas O’Hara, president of King’s College at the time, as speaker for the annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel Holy Name Society Smoker and took my seat at the head table next to Father Paul Mc Donnell. No sooner had Father O’Hara begun his talk when the pager of funeral director P.J. Adonizio, seated up front, went off. Startled, Father O’Hara stopped in mid-sentence and said, “Is my time up?” To which Father Paul immediately replied, “Somebody’s is.”
Say what you like about embalming, a lot of the people who do it feel like this about it.
Bergeron had been in seminary four years when he lost his calling, drawn more to the prospect of marriage and having a family. He was 32, an aspiring poet and essayist as versed in the music of Mississippi John Hurt as in the writings of St. Augustine.
After visiting an embalming room, he had found in death a way to stay close to God. The room’s tiled space seemed to him no less sacred than a church. The embalmers, dressed in aprons, sleeves rolled up, attended to corpses laid out on tables that looked like altars. Their work reminded him of the preparation of the Eucharist during Mass, something profound and holy.
Entire article in the Los Angeles Times here.
“We should never think of the funeral as a business.”
Buddhist priest, Japan.
This is from the New York Times:
SPECIAL occasions of every sort feature food and funerals are no exception. In many cultures, there are foods that are customarily served after a funeral.
The funeral cakes that were traditional in some denominations in this country, mostly Protestant, were often meant not only to provide refreshment for mourners, but also to be a token of remembrance. A pair of these cookie-like cakes, sometimes called seedcakes in old cookbooks, might be wrapped in black crepe paper or paper printed with such symbols as skulls, and given to mourners to take home as keepsakes.
In his book, ”Traditional Food in Yorkshire” (John Donald, 1987), Peter Brears, a professor at the University of Leeds in England, documented one instance when funeral cakes tied with black crepe were delivered to homes in the village as invitations to the funeral.
In the United States the custom of serving special funeral cakes has all but disappeared. But appropriately a selection of funeral cakes was offered to guests at the opening reception last week for an exhibition of gravestone carvings at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, presented by the Museum of American Folk Art. William Woys Weaver, the food historian who researched and adapted the recipes for the reception, said: ”Funeral cakes came here from Europe. They were common in northern Europe, and today the tradition is maintained primarily in rural areas of Sweden.”
Leslie Macchiarella has a recipe for funeral cake (pictured above), which she also calls Good Luck Peach Cake. The peaches carry ancient Chinese associations of happiness, luck and immortality.
Find it here. Well yummy.
