Good Funeral Guide offers hope to funeral shoppers in wake of Dispatches Undercover Undertaker.
Channel 4’s Dispatches film Undercover Undertaker (Monday 25 June) has shocked viewers with its undercover revelations at Co-operative Funeralcare, the obvious and most deserving target of such treatment*. The production line nature of the ‘hub’ depicted in the programme is the corollary of consolidation and rationalisation in the funeral industry. Its acceptability to consumers has […]
Closing ranks
We’ve got to be careful because we don’t want to be sued and the email we have just received says that “If you are not the intended recipient, any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon this message or its […]
First responses
And so it goes on. A thermo-nuclear half hour?
Dancing the Macabray
Posted by Vale In Neil Gaiman’s great children’s book ‘The Graveyard Book,’ Bod, a little boy growing up amongst the dead, dances the ‘Macabray’. It is Gaiman’s own version of the Danse Macabre where, in this instance, the dead and the living dance together. In the audiobook version every chapter is introduced by this lovely […]
A modern Danse Macabre
Posted by Vale The tradition for images of the Danse Macabre is of death alongside all of the different classes and stations in society. The message is clear – he is coming for us all. Here is a more recent version of the old tradition in a series of terrific woodcuts from the artist Hermann-Paul […]
Learning to dance with death
Posted by Vale I was reading the vision statement for the Dying Matters Coalition recently (as you do) and stubbed my toe on their ambition to address death, dying and bereavement in a way that: ’will involve a fundamental change in society in which dying, death and bereavement will be seen and accepted as the […]
GMFU non-self adjusting
The cat is out of the bag. Monday’s Dispatches will mount a televisual airstrike on Co-operative Funeralcare. Channel 4 managed to get an undercover reporter into a hub and filmed bodies stacked “like TV sets” in racks – a disturbing image which will have a devastating impact on an organisation which has spent a great […]
Co-operative Funeralcar
Brand new wheels for grief journeys bought by Co-op Funeralcare in Nottingham. One point two million quid’s worth. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comfortable.” More here.
RIP Bill Chapman
WR Chapman off to the crem on the back of one of his own. Where did that lovely cabinet come from? Full story here
Requiem mass for Philpott children
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Before they were arrested and charged with the murder of their six children in a petrol-fuelled arson fire in their Derby council house last month, Mick and Mary Philpott started planning a funeral at the Anglican Derby Cathedral. With the tragedy making headline news, they chose this local landmark, rightly predicting a lot of […]
