Author: Charles

Which? hunt

20 January 2012
Charles
27 Comments
Categories: funeral directors, scandals

Okay then, what’s so what’s our line on the latest media coverage of Funeralworld sparked by the ‘consumer advocacy organisation’ Which? deploring mendacious, predatory funeral directors?

All the age-old charges are levelled against funeral directors: opaque pricing, upselling, and talking people into services they don’t need like embalming. Out of 20 funeral directors mystery shopped by Which? the advice offered by 14 was rated poor or very poor.

This is what we think.

First, consumers have a duty to prepare, in advance of any commercial transaction they enter into, by informing themselves and shopping around. Funerals are no different. Perhaps they should be, but just now this is the way we do things, so tough. Buying a funeral is no different from buying a fridge. Or, perhaps more appropriately, a second-hand car. The first rule of capitalism is never give a sucker an even break.

Second, Which? has a very poor claim to be a consumer advocate in the area of funerals. Why? Because the Which? guide What To Do When Someone Dies is written by an funeral industry insider. That insider is Anne Wadey. Anne Wadey heads up the Bereavement Advice Centre, which is financed by the Independent Trust Corporation (ITC), a probate specialist, and sponsored by the NAFD. ITC’s reputation is deplorable. Have a look at the Review Centre website here. The latest review (12.12.2011) begins: “ITC Legal Services _ Never consider using them!” Please anyone out there contemplating using this firm for probate work, don’t don’t don’t! They are complete charlattans who lull you into a false sense of security that they will support you during a time of need and are actually only after fleecing the estate of your loved one. They have upset me so badly, I feel unable to even telephone them and consider taking them to court for misrepresentation is the only way forward.

We first looked at ITC in June 2010. If you’d like more detail, click here.

Third, this so-called survey by Which? is irresponsibly sensation seeking. Sure, they “applaud the examples of empathy and good practice we did see” — but there’s no reference to this in the Daily Mail report.

The effect is to tar all funeral directors with the same brush. This is terribly unfair.

Here at the GFG we are no strangers, obviously, to vile service from lying, cheating bastards trading as funeral directors.

We are also aware that some of the nicest, kindest, most principled people you could ever hope to meet also trade as funeral directors.

If Which? wanted to do consumers a service, this is what they would have said. They would have said that the good news is that anyone, anywhere, can find an ethical, golden-hearted funeral director who’ll look after them wonderfully well.

But they didn’t. They chose to stir the shit to get themselves a bit of cheap publicity.

And our completely crap media fell for it.

 

Daily Mail story here

Daily Telegraph story here 

Dethe where is thy sting, where Grave thy victory cry Molesworth

20 January 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

 

Posted by Vale

Ronald Searle is no more. We marked the day here at the GFG Batesville tower with a blog post and a brief period of mourning by dressing like Alaster Sim playing the headmistress of St Trinian’s. Enuff said.

But, in the pages of the Economist, the grate Molesworth himself has remembered him in the way that only he can. He say:

ART is for weeds and sissies whose mater hav said Take care of my dear little Cedric, he is delicate you kno and cannot stand a foopball to the head. Whenever anebode mention Art they all sa gosh mikelangelo leenardo wot magnificent simetry of line. Shurely the very pinnackle of western civilisation etc.etc. Pass me my oils Molesworth that I may paint my masterpeece. The headmaster sa gosh cor is that the medeechi venus hem-hem a grate work so true to life reminds me of young mrs filips enuff said.

Molesworth sa on the contry the most beatiful form in art is a Ronald Searle GURL from St Trinian’s in a tunick with black suspenders and armed with a hockey stick to beat the daylites out of another gurl or maybe just a teacher chortle chortle. Mr Searle sa he hav based her on his sister Olive. She hav wild platts and an empty gin bottle in her pocket a sack of poysinous todestools two sticks of dynamite and possibly a hippo on a lede while an old crone alias a teacher sa from a window Elspeth put that back AT ONCE. Or she will be sharpening a massiv knife on a grinder with grusome heads of gurls on a shelf behind and the headmistres will be telling the surprized parent this is Rachel, our head gurl, ha ha ha.

Of course Searle’s life and work went far beyond the gates of St Trinian’s and the doors of St Cedric’s. Molesworth follows him all the way. It’s a brilliant obituary and a true tribute to a grate man. Read it all here

Without knobs on

20 January 2012
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: coffins
From Richard Rawlinson, our religious correspondent, who is a Catholic. 
The campaign against ugly and extraneous coffin handles launched by aesthete and designer David Hicks, which the GFG ran a little while back – here – has support in high places. Pope John Paul II’s coffin was beautiful in its simplicity.
 

Second-hand coffin for sale

20 January 2012
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: coffins

A used casket went up for sale last month at a Los Angeles auction house with the estimate price of $1,000. The ‘one previous owner’ was Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F Kennedy’s suspected assassin. Shot dead by Jack Ruby just days after JFK’s murder in 1963, he was buried in Texas, but was unearthed after his widow sought an exhumation to test a conspiracy theory that a lookalike Russian agent had been buried in her husband’s place. A medical examination showed the decomposed body was indeed Oswald’s, and he was returned to his plot in a new casket. The original coffin had deteriorated, and was sold by Baumgardner Funeral Home, the local undertaker which handled the re-internment. It fetched $87,469. The owner is unknown.

Story here.

A bit more here http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/12/17/Oswalds-coffin-auctioned-off-for-87469/UPI-94281292590123/

Best of Fife

19 January 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral directors

You remember Neil Brunton? He’s the singer-songwriting-undertaker you voted for a while back in that Radio 2 competition. Let us refresh your memory here. 

Well, partly thanks to you he’s made it to the final.

Here’s the story (abridged):

Neil Brunton has reached the final stages of a national songwriting competition called Oldie Composers, on behalf of the charity Barnardo’s.

His self-penned melody ‘Jacob Street’ secured enough on-line votes to make the final 21 – which will be judged on January 30 by Sir Terry Wogan, Ken Bruce, Johnnie Walker, Bob Harris and Radio 2 music producer Malcolm Prince.

The leading four will then be recorded professionally in London and released on i-Tunes for Barnardo’s.

Neil (43) was surprised and delighted cialis 10 mg order with his success to date – and overwhelmed by the number of votes he received, thanks in part to a previous story in the Mail.

“Just the thought that someone like ‘Whispering’’ Bob Harris is sitting down to listen to one of my songs is pretty special.”

Neil said he’d continue writing songs as a hobby and if other competitions arose, he’d certainly consider entering.

“But with a young family and work commitments, it is difficult time-wise, so I’m not planning any world tours just yet,” he added.

Full story here.

Deathfest Southbank

19 January 2012
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

With a Festival Day Pass for Saturday 28 January or Sunday 29 January, muse upon mortality, tackle the taboo and join us for a weekend of discussion, workshops and talks.

Ask questions, share your stories or simply be enlightened about the end.

Including:

–  Assisted dying: The Human Rights Debate with Jon Snow

– The Long Goodbye – Meghan O’Rourke recounts her personal experience of grief from her memoir

–   A Scattering – Christopher Reid reads from his Costa Book Award-winning collection of poems

–  27: the age the rockstar died by Paul Morley

– Death Bites – Hear all about death including cryonics, the art of obituary writing, what happens to your data after you die, and body politics                             

–  Of Mutability – Jo Shapcott reads from her Costa Book Award-winning book

–  Writer Ian Clayton tells his heart-rending experience of bereavement and the new paths that can arise from loss

– Panels consider a range of subjects including organ donation, suicide and survival

–   Death Bites – Hear all about death including the rise of women funeral directors, memorial tattooing, celebrity death, and the lives of gangs and inner-city young people and their relationship to death

In addition to a packed daytime programme covered by the Festival Day Pass you can also enjoy evening concerts and performances which are ticketed separately.

GOODBYE MR MUFFIN

Friday 27 – Sunday 29 January

An uplifting children’s story about the last days in the life of much-loved guinea pig Mr Muffin, told through puppetry, animation and music.                    

MUSIC TO DIE FOR BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA

Friday 27 January

A heavenly mix of devilishly popular classics from composers obsessed by death, including Saint-Saëns and Mahler, and excerpts from requiems by Verdi, Fauré and Mozart.

THE SANDI TOKSVIG MEMORIAL LECTURE

Saturday 28 January

Die Laughing: Bringing life back to the subject of death, Sandi Toksvig seeks out a mix of merriment and the macabre in morbidity.                          

AN INSTINCT FOR KINDNESS

Friday 27 – Sunday 29 January

Chris Larner explores the contentious issue of assisted dying through his candid, poignant and sometimes comic tale of visiting Switzerland’s Dignitas clinic with his chronically ill ex-wife.

SONG OF SUMMER: FREDERICK DELIUS

Sunday 29 January

A screening of the late Ken Russell’s classic film followed by a discussion with Julian Lloyd Webber, Delius expert Lyndon Jenkins, Barry Humphries and David Mellor (chair).                         

MARKUS BIRDMAN A STROKE OF LUCK

Sunday 29 January

Life begins at 40. Then you have a stroke. Oh goodie. Stand-up comedian Markus Birdman’s show is about life, love, death and laughing in the face of it all.                               

FREE EVENTS, INSTALLATIONS, HEART TO HEARTS AND SLICES OF CAKE

Come along to a variety of free events to get you thinking about death. See a vibrant collection of bespoke coffins, discover uncanny death-themed games, request made-to-order poetry and hear stimulating discussions at the Death Café and Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs. Join us to consider death through a wealth of thought-provoking, informative and amusing activities and displays.

southbankcentre.co.uk/death           Ticket Office: 0844 847 9910

Southbank Centre is a charity registered in England and Wales No.298909.

Registered office: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.

Ozzy Osbourne on coffin shopping

19 January 2012
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: coffins

Ozzy Osborne is an agony uncle at the Sunday Times. Here’s a recent interaction: 

Dear Dr Ozzy, is it bad form to shop for your own coffin? (I ask this as a cancer patient with very particular tastes.)
Anonymous 

Ozzy replies:

It ain’t bad form, but there’s gotta be something better to do with your time if you’re expecting the worse. I mean, it’s not like you’ll get much of an opportunity to admire your brass handles and velvet padding after the funeral. You’ll be a gonner! If you wanna go shopping, Dr Ozzy’s advice is to buy something you can enjoy while you’re still breathing.

Sunday Times 8 Jan 2012

Bicycle hearse for sale

19 January 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

Paul Sinclair, he who begat Motorcycle Funerals, has a bicycle hearse for sale. 

It’s made to his own design, and it’s been thoroughly tested. Says Paul, “We put a coffin on it and 30 stones of sandbags then rode it with two, me being pillion. It went fine.”

Paul warns: “I won’t sell it to someone I think will just stick it on display somewhere as I want it to be used.” He adds: “The pillion rider needs shoe size ten or under! Riders MUST be trained in sidecar riding, it is difficult and disconcerting with almost no weight, but it can be done with the training we would provide and it is much easier with a coffin. If the buyer was using it a lot we’d advise fitting leading link forks and again we could explain all that. I don’t advise hacking it round bends as bicycle spokes have their limits with transverse forces, but on the half dozen plus funerals we’ve done sensibly it has never ever let us down. The coffin is tied down with straps to the handles rather than stoppered in, so it is very secure.”

It’s seen some lovely funerals. Says Paul: “Our most amazing one was where it was ridden into a church in Devon and sat at the front all through the service. It was then turned round and off back out straight down the aisle. How cool!”

Find out more, or put in a bid, by contacting Paul here. 

For more details, please contact us by email: charlescowling@blueyonder.co.uk

Buried in greenery

19 January 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: alternative funerals, coffins, natural burial

When the GFG went to the London Funeral Exhibition last summer at Epping Woodland Burial Park we met Angie Whitaker, who works at a sister burial ground, Chiltern.  Her husband is buried in the woods there. Angie gave a talk to visitors about her experience of natural burial. I asked her to write it up for the blog, and here it is:

There is an element in all of us that likes to be in control. We work, we plan our birthdays, our holidays, our weddings; it all has to be perfect. Very few of us think of our death, we put it to one side, hope it will go away.

That was me.

Then the worst possible thing happens. My husband is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Both of us become very quickly aware that this part of our story will not have a happy ending.

It doesn’t.

It is December 2009, and I have the local doctor talking to me about funerals. Through the haze of unreality I hear him mention a local funeral director, and know this is not what I want. The thought of waiting in a conveyor belt at the local crematorium fills me with dread.

Fortunately I found an advert in the local directory for a Green Funeral Director, rang them, they came to see me. Please tell me I can have a funeral with a difference? I said Keith, my husband, was an artist, a woodsman. At this, a brochure was presented to me. Chiltern Woodland Burial Park. Great, let’s go see it. But I need an unusual coffin. A brochure appears. Brilliant. Cardboard coffins with pictures on.

On a bleak, wet, icy, windy January day I go to the Burial Park. We are met by Peter Taylor, given coffee, kindness and a woodland tour. A tree is chosen, the date confirmed.

The weather worsens. It snows like it never has before. The Woodland Burial Park somehow manages the whole event. A hundred and twenty-five people have battled their way through blizzards and closed roads to stand in awe at our very own Narnia. They gather together, drink wine and talk about Keith, then walk through the trees to find the turquoise-blue coffin with images of a sparrowhawk flying a Sparrowhawk aeroplane, one of Keith’s mad ‘Animals That Travel’ pictures. Keith was a graphic artist and was working on illustrations of animals that travel. He had an idea to put together a little book for Motor Neurone Disease. The pictures included a hippo in a hot air balloon, a jaguar driving a Jaguar car, a freisian cow driving a milk float, and a sparrowhawk bird flying a Sparrowhawk plane.

So many people said to me we had a great day, it was the best funeral we have ever been to. So many people did not know that there is a choice, you can have the exactly the kind of funeral that is right for you, and right for the environment.

I knew that I had got it right.

And afterwards, when we go back to visit, we are always met with kindness.

Our woodland is exactly what the brochure says: a place to celebrate life.

How much are you?

19 January 2012
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: funeral cost

A very big up to Saint and Forster Funeral Services, who have just gone public and transparent with their prices.

From us, a big ask to all funeral directors to follow suit.

Saint and Forster prices here.

Saint and Forster here.