Author: Charles

Good Funeral Awards 2014 – the WINNERS

7 September 2014
Charles
23 Comments
Categories: Good Funeral Awards

Funeral Director of the Year

Sarah Clarke of Arka Original Funerals

Most Promising New Funeral Director of the Year  – sponsored by the Church of England

Sarah Stuart and Lel Wallace of Wallace Stewart

Green Funeral Director of the Year sponsored by GreenAcres

Tracy O’Leary, Woodland Wishes

Association of Green Funeral Directors Green Funeral Director of the Year

Gordon and Alison Tulley, Respect Woodland Green Burial Parks

Funeral Arranger of the Year

Angela Bailey of Harrison Funeral Home

Celebrant of the Year

Dee Ryding

Embalmer of the Year

Bob Dyer of A Dyer & Sons and Midland Embalming Service

Gravedigger of the Year

Jonny Laxley

Crematorium Attendant or Manager of the Year

Peter Rodwel, Seven Hills

Eternal Slumber Coffin Supplier of the Year

Roger Fowle

Best Alternative Hearse

Claire Brooks, Volkswagen Funerals

Cemetery of the Year

Clandon Wood

Blossom d’Amour Award for Funeral Floristry

Cassandra Thompson of Stems, New Covent Garden

Most Significant Contribution to the Understanding of Death

Jon Underwood, Death Café

Best Internet Bereavement Resource

MuchLoved

Lifetime Achievement Award

Chris Parker

Calling all you lastminuters!

5 September 2014
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Good Funeral Awards, Ideal Death Show

IDS

The Ideal Death Show starts today. There will be great speakers, great exhibitors, great fellowship and great fun.

The event will have all its usual hallmarks: 

  • No hush and awe
  • No black suits
  • inclusive
  • unstuffy
  • chatty
  • amazing cakes (how great thou art)

Didn’t get around to booking??

No worries. Saturday’s the day to be there. We can still probably fit you in. Text or phone Charles 07557 684 515 or Brian 07545 232 980 and we’ll see what we can do. (The Good Funeral Awards Gala Dinner on Saturday evening is full to bursting.)

idealdeathshow.co.uk

goodfuneralawards.co.uk

Peter Pan and the could-have-beens

4 September 2014
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: History

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

The two-minute silence, the candle-lit vigil and the ‘lights out’ remembrance ritual have all played a part in World War One centenary commemorations this year.

The Great War’s anniversary topicality has also sparked interest in its history, whether reading, or visiting the extremely well-curated centenary exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum.

It was Stalin who stated of death: ‘one is a tragedy; one million is a statistic’. Individual stories do indeed make it easier to empathise with universal suffering and sacrifice. Shame they failed to move the Soviet sadist.

While researching the life and death of a relative killed, aged 24, in the trenches of at St Eloi on 14 March, 1915, I stumbled across the fact that George Llewelyn Davies, one of the brothers who inspired JM Barrie’s Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, fell on the same day at the same place, and also as a result of being shot in the head.

George, pictured here in his final year at Eton in 1912, was by now being fostered by Barrie, who had become his guardian on the death of George’s mother in 1910. George had lost his father in 1907, and was close to ‘Uncle Jim’, exchanging letters regularly while he was away at school.

Barrie began writing Peter Pan when George was 10. In response to Barrie’s tale about babies who died and went to live in Neverland, the boy reportedly inspired Peter Pan’s memorable line, ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure’.

Had George lived, he might, conceivably, have started a family around 1920. His offspring might have started families of their own around 1950, meaning this generation would be around retirement age right now. They in turn may have had children around 1980, meaning George’s great grandchildren could be 30somethings now, and producing their own bundles of joy. 

So it goes on, this awfully big adventure of life and death. One death has prevented others from themselves experiencing life and death. And we, of course, might have been ‘could-have-beens’, too, had a direct descendant died earlier. It goes without saying that if our grandparents hadn’t had our parents, neither they nor we would be around either.

This leads to a flight of fancy almost worthy of Peter Pan. For millennia, people have believed in life after death, but it’s less common for human imaginations to dwell on the possibility of there being a life of some kind before conception and life on earth? We need to live to die, but Fate ensures millions miss out on this living and dying thing.

A moment of silence or applause, or light a candle or raise a glass, to those who went before, those who are here now, those who are yet to come and those who could have been but weren’t.

Give others a chance to help pay for child funerals

3 September 2014
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: celebrants, Children, funeral directors

What an interesting debate that was, the one about whether undertakers and celebrants should charge for the funerals of children. A great many people followed it silently; the 25 comments represent a tiny fraction of the overall readership.

The debate was not conducted on a level of dispassionate logic, so neither side prevailed, but the heart-over-head faction had the greatest numerical support.

Lucy defined a rationale for charging: “I understand completely why other funeral directors on here wouldn’t charge, but if we applied the same emotional response to every family who walked through the door, we wouldn’t be in business for very long … people die in exceptionally tragic circumstances every day … why don’t they get a free funeral?” 

Gloria Mundi defined the heart-over-head position: “We can’t charge according to some personal tragedy-meter. Rationally, I can see no reason for not charging, but ‘the heart also has its reasons.’”

X Piry agreed: “On a logical level, I know that charging is the right thing to do, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.”

Any cool-headed rationalist will be driven potty by all this. If the parents of children who have died are worthy of financial help then, by the same measure, so too, surely, are those adults who, in Wendy Coulton’s words, “have become full time devoted carers of a relative who has been in their life for over 50 years. They are often living on the breadline because they gave up work to look after their loved one. Their loss is profound, not only for the person who has died but their own identity and sense of purpose. They have no concessions on funeral costs.”

Why not? Because they don’t tug at the heartstrings in the same way, obviously. And what this inconsistency illustrates is that, while some causes are more glamorous than others, the less glamorous are no less deserving. This accounts for why, for example, Help for Heroes has raised a sum approaching £200 million for wounded servicemen, but charities who work with the disproportionate number of ex-servicemen who are in prison or sleeping rough struggle to raise anything at all. Research into breast cancer fundraises more effectively than prostate cancer. This is mostly down to relative anatomical attractiveness.

For all their robustness, rational arguments don’t win converts. It’s the way of the world. But let’s at least not kid ourselves: funeral poverty in the wider population is a cause of equal value.

Where we can probably agree is that what all parents of children who have died value more than anything else are the abstract qualities of compassion, kindness and support.

The same as for all bereaved people.

We can agree that these are not qualities most articulately or effectively expressed by knocking a bit off a bill. Yes?

But what some (not all) parents of children who have died also value is ‘concrete’ help with paying the bill.

As do lots of other bereaved people.

In the matter of children’s funerals there are almost certainly lots of people unconnected with the funerals business who would like to help.

The new Child Funeral Charity enables them to do this. Undertakers and celebrants can give them a chance to chip in by publicising it and sharing the load.

Anne Barber, trustee of the CFC, writes:

The charity will be giving financial help to families who cannot afford to pay for their child or baby’s funeral, referred to us by professionals who work with them, (probably including most of the readers of this blog!). The payments will start from October 1st. Not only payments, but access to suppliers who are prepared to help by giving their products and services at cost or free. We are working hard to fundraise and are optimistic that the families who we can help will be the ones who really do need the help.

We know that the Social Fund is meant to help those on benefits to pay for funerals but as yet they have declined to tell us how many funerals for those under 16 they actually pay anything towards. Not many, we suspect, we will persevere until we get some statistics. But let’s not re-open the Social Fund debate.

The families we believe we will help the most are those who might be in work but are young and on low incomes, some even teenagers themselves, with absolutely no savings or hope of paying for a funeral. Often family, especially grandparents step in, but often they can’t.

The costs they might have to pay, as so rightly already pointed out here, vary enormously and they won’t know that if they went to a different funeral director or a different crematorium it could be less. Some funeral directors we have spoken to do far more than give their professional services, they actually pay ALL the fees for the family, so families do not spend one penny.

Overall we have been overwhelmed by the support that is out there and that we have been encountered already. Health professionals have contacted us keen to use the service and we have had calls from those rejected by the Social Fund as they aren’t on the ‘right type’ of benefits.

Our challenge is to make sure that we help in cases of real need. We will do our very best.

Movie night at the cemetery

2 September 2014
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: cemeteries
Guest post by Celebrant Wendy Coulton of Dragonfly Funerals

Tinseltown is not immune to the universal challenges cemeteries face generating a sustainable income to maintain the grounds and run its services.

It was reassuring to learn as a former director of a charitable trust which manages Ford Park Cemetery in Plymouth that the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles has also been saved from the brink of financial collapse and closure.  And the new owners have come up with innovative ways to get people through the gates to appreciate the cemetery as a heritage asset for all generations.

They have movie nights within the 60-acre grounds and kiosks with video tributes to people interred there.

I firmly believe that cemeteries must find such ways to make a connection with the living – to be relevant and resonate with people for different reasons – whether it is for the peace and green open space to reflect, the architecture and memorials or the abundant human interest stories. Cemeteries can capture the history, culture and individuality of a locality and its community just as well as any museum.

If you have a non-morbid love of cemeteries there is a name for us – Taphophiles.

Writing Articles after a Funeral

1 September 2014
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Hearses

Posted by David Hall

Unlike other Carriage Masters, Vintage Lorry Funerals David Hall’s involvement with a Family doesn’t end at the Crematorium, as he is often involved in writing articles about the Deceased and submitting them to Editors of Trade Magazines.

David is known to a number of Editors and he can write articles in a manner and style specific to each publication and normally these articles are prominently featured. No charge is made for this element of his service because David knows this is a win, win, win situation. Families are delighted to see their Loved One’s memory honoured in such a prestigious magazine, the Editor is pleased as extra copies of the magazine fly off the shelves from W. H. Smiths in the area around the Funeral Directors location and it does Vintage Lorry Funerals no harm in having its contact details at the bottom of the article.

David Hall’s drive to market the business was precipitated not by an approach from a Marketing Company but by a grieving lady from his first funeral in London. After a very large funeral in Croydon Crematorium a lady walked out of the crowd and made a bee-line for David who was rolling up the ratchet straps. This person was not a member of the Family but a grieving lady who had lost her own Father only 3 weeks previously. She explained, ‘My Dad would have loved to have had his final journey on your lorry. Why didn’t I know about your lorry? Why didn’t my Funeral Director tell me about your lorry?’ David was shell-shocked by the vitriolic nature of the approach. The lady then stepped closer and between each word she spoke she poked David in the ribs with her forefinger saying, ‘You need to get out there. You need to get a picture in every Funeral Directors window. Your lorry won’t sell itself!’ Twelve years on David can still feel the bruises in his ribs.

When David was booked for a funeral of a 95 year old, former British Road Services Driver, the Family took up David’s offer to write an article suitable for a Transport Magazine. David felt that Ernest Cackett was unique having a lifespan of 95 years as most men who worked alongside Ernest never reached retirement age. The high mortality rate of Lorry Drivers from the 1950s was caused by poor diets, irregular meals, early starts, late finishes, and working an average week and a half in each week, compared with other types of employment. Ernest put his long life down to not drinking or smoking and keeping fit.

At Wilford Hill Crematorium David was shown some black & white photographs and a number of Family members recounted amazing stories from Ernest’s days on the road. The best one being when Ernest was driving a Leyland Octopus Eight-wheeler, and trailer, accompanied by a Trailer Boy who operated the trailer brakes. When they parked up for the night in the middle of nowhere in the winter of 1949 Ernest told the boy that he could sleep inside the cab and Ernest would sleep under the tarpaulins on the sheet rack, on top of the cab. Early in the morning the boy woke up shivering and rubbed a hole in the condensation on the windscreen to see that 5 inches of snow had fallen overnight. The boy tried to wake Ernest by calling his name a number of times and with a lack of response he was fearful that Ernest had passed away during the night. However, the sheets and the snow on top were flung back, Ernest stood up, stretched and said, ‘Come on lad, we have to get rolling.’

David, with help from Denise Cackett, Ernest’s Daughter-in-Law, wrote an article for Vintage Roadscene, a Kelsey publication that features obituaries in the ‘Scene & Heard’ section near the rear of the magazine. The text was accompanied by two pictures, a 1947 photograph of Ernest in front of his lorry and one from the funeral with Ernest’s coffin on the 1950 Leyland Beaver, taking up over three quarters of a page.

Ernest’s Family said that he used to receive a Retirement Magazine from his former employer, in which obituaries were featured on the back page, however, no one knew the name of the magazine as Ernest’s supply was lost when he went into a Care Home. So David was given the challenge of finding out the name of the magazine and the contact details of the Editor. David is part of Commercial Transport in Preservation (CTP) an organisation of over 400 members throughout Britain who restore vintage vehicles. A regular monthly meeting takes place in Salisbury and there are a number of Road Runs during the year, however, from David’s perspective the most important feature are the contacts he has built up over the years.

Robin Masters operates a Bristol Eight-wheeler in BRS colours in road runs and he helped to provide David with information on the magazine, Making Connections, and the email address of the Editor. In addition on hearing Ernest’s activities sleeping under the stars and the sheets, Robin offered David editorial space in the Handout he was preparing as part of his BRS Liveried Vehicle Road Run. Ernest Cackett’s family was invited to the Road Run and shown vehicles similar to the ones Ernest used to drive. Denise Cacket reported back to David Hall that she and the rest of Ernest’s family had been treated like celebrities once they had introduced themselves to Robin Masters.

Three months after Ernest’s funeral Making Connections prominently featured Ernest’s article with it taking up over half of their Obituary Page, with 7 other obituary articles confined to the other half.

The ability to write articles is another way David can exceed a Family’s expectation of his services and this can lead to very positive referrals.

http://www.vintagelorryfunerals.co.uk

ED’S NOTE: David writes for us at the beginning of every month, his copy always arriving promptly on the 1st. His delightful reminiscences are a highlight for many readers. Please do not hold back in showing your appreciation. 

Wonderful to listen to

29 August 2014
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: memorialisation

It all began in South Africa. I bet you didn’t know that.

Top Gear tweeted during it. So did Diane Abbot and British Gas.

In Asda, Bournemouth, they played Sweet Soul Music during it.

In Ayrshire they once shockingly forgot to do it at all.

It was transplanted to the UK following a proclamation by King George V:

“All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

Yes, you’ve got it: the two minutes’ silence held every year on 11/11 at 11 o’clock. Incredibly effective it was, too, back then. Everyone marvelled at the sudden bottomless silence of Britain’s cities, something never heard before.

Silence is a stiff-upper-lip, emotionally uptight style of commemoration peculiarly typical of its era. So, is silent commemoration of the dead looking a bit dated now that we have become so much more emotionally demonstrative?

Far from it. It not only lives on, it’s spread to mark sad occasions in all sorts of communities.

Beekeepers do it:

‘Stowmarket Group held its AGM on 24th February; 32 members enjoyed a ploughman’s lunch prior to the meeting. Tony Payne (Chair) opened the meeting with a minute’s silence as a tribute to Elaine Buffery who died last year.’

Chimneysweeps do it:

‘It was a great shock to us to learn of the untimely death in September, of a lovely gentleman Allan Lyon from Malton, who never missed our meetings, he had been sweeping 10 years and retired in May. It was rather a sad start to the afternoon having to inform everyone there, most having had long chats with him in previous years. We observed a minutes silence and drank a toast in his memory.’

Pretty much everyone does it.

Newcastle United began their first game of the season with a minute’s silence to mourn the deaths of two fans on MH17. In fact, so many football matches begin with a period of silence to mark the passing of a former player that academics have warned us of the diminishing impact that will result from ‘silence inflation’.

It’s a clever idea but what do academics know? Silent commemoration is here to stay. It exerts huge and compelling bonding power over communities of people. Silence is a very eloquent way of saying ‘You’re one of us, we honour you, we miss you.’

They do it differently in Italy, Italians being more exuberant. There, they start with silence then begin to clap around halfway through, building to a crescendo.

The Liverpool-Juventus game in 2005 was the first time the teams had met since the infamous game of 1985 when 39 Juventus supporters were killed in riots. This time, both sets of fans were on their best behaviour. A minute’s silence was held for Pope John Paul II, who had recently died. The Liverpool fans, unaware of the Italian way of commemoration, were shocked when the opposition fans began to clap. So angry were they at their desecration of the silence that they booed them when they stopped. Tricky moment.

In spite of that, the Italian way of silence-and-applause has caught on at football grounds all over the UK. Fans have clapped Bobby Robson, Nelson Mandela, the victims of Hillsborough.

The minute’s applause has taken its place as the alternative to silence, although as one fan has pointed out, ‘What we will lose is the life-goes-on eruption of the crowd once the referee has signalled the end of the silence. Everybody loves that.’

Why do kids go free?

26 August 2014
Charles
30 Comments
Categories: Children, funeral cost, funeral directors

“We lost our son at 22 weeks … My husband and I were not religious so we had a small cremation. The funeral company did not charge us for the service. A humanist also held a short service for us and yet again there was no charge. I know money isn’t everything but it was so lovely to know this wasn’t an additional thing to have to worry about.” A mum on Mumsnet.

Commodification is when something done for nothing becomes something sold for money. The dead used to be cared for, free, by members of the community, whose work had no market value. It does now, though. It’s been commodified.

Bereaved people often find it hard to get their heads around this business of making money out of misery. Many undertakers aren’t entirely comfortable with their commercial function, either, which is why the word ‘service’ is so prominent in their vocabulary.

Presumably it’s also why hardly any of them charge for the funerals of children.

What does that say? It’s not as if the workload is any less. On the contrary, it’s likely to be far greater, both physically and emotionally. Sure, many parents are unprepared for the expense of arranging a funeral, but they’re not the only ones. Is it because the death of a child is particularly, poignantly tragic? Okay then, what about the death of a young bride on her honeymoon? What about suicides? Hit-and-run victims?

Is it that charging for adults is bad enough, but that charging for children would just be going too far? If that really is the message, it shows some undertakers to be very unconvinced commodifiers – as, indeed, some are. It’s why a few of them hardly charge enough to put food on their tables. They’d love to be able to wind the clock back and do it for nothing.

Some undertakers may feel like this, but not all. Offering free funerals for children is cynically reckoned by some to be an eyecatching loss-leader. It lends an aura of compassion to what is actually an act of ingratiation, because one child’s funeral earns you, what, three adult funerals? Someone in marketing, we may be sure, will have done the maths.

So: who pays? There’s no such thing as a free funeral, obviously. No, the funerals of babies and children are subsidised by either by the profits of the funerals of adults, or the marketing budget, or the undertaker. If the undertaker is taking a personal hit every time, I don’t know that I can think of a single good reason for that. Can you?

Celebrancy, too, is commodified. Some celebrants lead babies’ and children’s funerals for nothing, others don’t. Some don’t get to decide either way. A celebrant told me:

“I’ve come across a funeral directors’ manager saying she would never employ a celebrant again who charged money for a child’s ceremony. She still uses Interflora and all the rest who charge, doesn’t expect the local petrol station to fill the hearse for nothing and, as far as I know, she still keeps that part of her salary relevant to organizing the funeral. Are there double standards at work here?  It may be admirable if you want to decline payment, for anything at all and for whatever reason, but why would it be an expectation?”

Why indeed? Do doctors and nurses who treat children decline pay? Do the grief counsellors of bereaved parents waive their fee?

An undertaker told me:

“It’s a fine line to walk, isn’t it? Some parents appreciate the gesture, but I think that some parents don’t want ‘pity’, ‘charity’. They actually want their child to be ‘worth’ something like a ‘real person’ would be – they somehow feel the life is validated by paying for the funeral. One father said, ‘I’ll never walk her down the aisle on her wedding day, but I can give her the best funeral.’

“But then we run the danger of getting into the conspicuous spending loop, don’t we? If we do one for ‘free’ and they spend thousands on flowers… what do they think of us charging nothing? What are we saying by charging nothing – that we don’t want to be sullied by taking money associated with their child’s death? That there’s not so much work involved? That we feel that not charging somehow could help mitigate their loss?”

Getting the best you can afford

19 August 2014
Charles
18 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, Dignity, funeral directors

funeralchoice

 

When the GFG started blogging all of 6 years ago, an appalled and furious undertaker rang his solicitor and instructed him to take out an injunction requiring us to cease and desist.

The solicitor told him it didn’t quite work like that; had the GFG libelled him?

No we hadn’t. But we were doing something no one had ever done before. We were disturbing the peace, talking publicly about the funerals business on a blog, asking impertinent questions. New. Shocking. Damnable. We weren’t the national treasure back then that we are today.

It’s the internet wot done it, the greatest change agent that consumer advocacy has ever seen. It informs bereaved people and enables them to shop around. Are they all going to rush to the cheapest? Not all by any means, they’re going to buy the best they can for what they can afford. How many people use TripAdvisor to find the cheapest? Price is important of course; funeral shoppers are extremely sensitive to being ripped off. But what they’re looking for above all is value for money, and that means hunting down the best possible personal service available in their price bracket.

Ironically, that’s often one of the cheapest.

Reputation testifies to quality of service, which is why undertakers prize it so highly. But it’s not enough any more for them to rely on word-of-mouth because funeral shoppers can now research more effectively on the internet where customer reviews are reckoned more reliable than haphazard hearsay. They like to make their minds up for themselves, not rely on the heads-up of a neighbour or the testimonials on an undertaker’s website. Everyone has those, so they tell you nothing.

The internet is the new maker and breaker of reputations.

The best undertakers have nothing to lose and everything to gain by embracing this. awlymn-logoAW Lymn publishes all essential information online, including prices. It also publishes, monthly, its client feedback. It is alone in doing this.

At present, the nationwide consumer reviews site is Funeral Advisor, funeral-advisor-logowhich is gaining traction not because it has a marketing budget of millions but because funeral shoppers need it to work and are therefore making it work. It is credible because it is sponsored by the National Death Centre. It doesn’t carry much info on prices, though.

Which is why there’s room in the market for a price comparison site and, as it happens, we now have one: FuneralChoice. I know the people behind it. They are everything you’d hope. FuneralChoice is a labour of love which hopes to find a way of becoming sustainable by proving its value.

FuneralChoice’s’s coverage is nowhere near national, but it’s spreading. I decided to look in London and typed in a postcode: SW1P 1SB. This is what I got. Click the pic to bring it up to full size.

funeralchoice2

Effective, isn’t it? I decided to go with Leverton’s. It’s not the cheapest, but look, it’s recommended by the Good Funeral Guide, which is notoriously hard to please. As for Evershed’s, the cheapest, I wonder if its clients love it? I can’t tell because FuneralChoice doesn’t enable client reviews and Evershed’s hasn’t asked us to accredit it. Shame, that.

You notice how Co-op Funeralcare and Dignity cluster at the most expensive end? It’ll be the death of them.

The ideal is a website which enables browsers to determine value by measuring price and other info against customer satisfaction — a capital-intensive instrument calling for big databases and complex software.

On the horizon there is RightChoice, a sophisticated instrument which is in the final stages of development. Definitely one to watch.

Does this spell the end for the GFG and NDC as consumer resources? Far from it. People buy a funeral far less frequently than they eat out, go on holiday and buy a car. Their knowledge of the market is close to zero. So there will always be a need for guidance by informed observers of the industry. Our knowledge and expertise are indispensable.

Our relationship with price comparison websites will be symbiotic. Our reviews of undertakers we recommend greatly enhance the info they carry. They in return publicise us and our recommended funeral directors.

It all helps put customers in the driving seat where they belong.

RightChoice

This year’s Good Funeral Award finalists

15 August 2014
Charles
16 Comments
Categories: Good Funeral Awards

The Good Funeral Awards judges have sifted through hundreds of nominations for this year’s great event and have issued the following longlist. Every category is strong. Winners will be announced at the glittering, gala Good Funeral Awards dinner at Bournville, Birmingham, on 6 September 2014.

Who are the judges? We couldn’t possibly say. As with the Oscars and the Baftas, the identities of the judges are hidden in order to protect them from influence, on the one hand, and retribution, on the other. The process is as safe and fair and objective as possible.

Have you booked for either this event or for the Ideal Death Show, 5-7 September? Have a look at the Ideal Death Show website here and see what you’ll miss if you don’t book now. As ever, this is a great gathering of the most interesting people in the funerals biz. This year there will be lots of members of the public there, too.

Good Funeral Awards 2014 — the longlist

Funeral Director of the Year

Daniel and  Sarah Wolsey – Daniel Ross Funerals, West Midlands

Mark Catchpole – Harrison Funeral Home, Essex

Sarah Clarke – Arka Original Funerals, Sussex

Julian Hussey – AG Down, Dorset and Devon

Chris Parker – Abbey Funeral Services, Kent

Poppy Mardall – Poppy’s Funerals, London

David Parslow – Walter C Parson, Devon

Jill Huelin – Co-operative Funeralcare, West Yorkshire

Colin Fisher – Colin Fisher Funerals, Kent

Lucy Jane – Individual Funeral Company, Oxfordshire

Embalmer of the Year

Liz Davis – Freelance

Helen Bozon – Richard Ward Funeral Services, Leicestershire

Bob Dyer – Midlands Embalming Services

Cara Wisznieski – Fred Hamer Funeral Services, Lancashire

Most Promising New Funeral Director of the Year sponsored by the Church of England

Claire Turnham – Only With Love, Oxfordshire

Evelyn Temple – Evelyn’s Funerals, Berkshire

Louris Hilton – Hilton’s Funeral Directors, Shropshire

Lesley Wallace and Sarah Stuart – Wallace Stuart Funeral Directors, Somerset

Funeral Arranger of the Year

Angela Bailey – Harrison Funeral Home, Essex

Donna Adams – AR Adams, Essex

Emma Fisher – Colin Fisher Funerals, Kent

Rebecca Diamond – AW Lymn, Nottinghamshire

Celebrant of the Year

Belinda Forbes

Wendy Weavin

Katie Deverell

Dee Ryding

Jane Morgan

Terri Shanks

Steve Emmett

Rebecca Williams Dinsdale

Lynne Watson

Lyn Banham

Lesley Arnold Hopkins

Lifetime Achievement Award

David Meek – AW Lymn, Nottinghamshire

Eric de Chalon – Bungard, Sussex

Chris Parker – Abbey Funerals, Kent

Major Contribution to the Understanding of Death

Barbara Chalmers – Final Fling

Jon Underwood – Death Café

Chantal Lockey

Best Alternative Hearse

Volkswagen Funerals

Trike Funerals

Morris Minor Hearse Company

Land Rover 4 * 4 Funerals

Cemetery of the Year

Usk

Groby Garden of Remembrance

Kemnal Park

Welwyn Hatfield Lawn Cemetery

Clandon Wood

Florist of the Year

Cassandra Thompson – Stems

UK Flower Lounge – Didsbury, Yorks

Melanie Edwards – Flowers by Mel

Green Funeral Director of the Year sponsored by GreenAcres

Tracy O’Leary – Woodland Wishes

Respect – Margaret Rose

Tomalins, Henley

Crematorium Attendant

Peter Rodwell – Seven Hills

Paul James – Easthampstead Park

Gravedigger of the Year

Jonny Yaxley & Will Macdonald – Henley NBG

Ken McGarrigle & Steve Riddell – Dunstable Cemetery

Michael and Mark Symonds – Karen Hussey

Coffin Supplier of the Year

Sara Elliot – Terra Pura

Roger Fowle

ComparetheCoffin.com

Wealden Coffins

Honest Coffins

Best Bereavement Resource

Much Loved

Dead Social

FuneralChoices.co.uk

What to do if someone dies