Author: Charles

Funeral spend has plunged in Ireland

16 November 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: funeral cost, funerals in other cultures

From the Irish Independent an alarming trend (if you’re an undertaker) and a familiar issue:

Undertakers say the average cost of a funeral has dropped by almost 40pc in the past five years.

They say cash-strapped families have had little choice but to compromise on funeral ceremonies by foregoing extras that they once took for granted, like flowers, music and limousines.

At the height of the boom, an average funeral would cost €6,500. But it wasn’t uncommon for upwards of €10,000 to be spent up on laying a loved one to rest in lavish ceremonies.

However, it appears bereaved families are more dissatisfied with the service they are receiving from Ireland’s 600 undertakers. According to the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, which represents 250 funeral directors, there has been a “marked increase” in the number of complaints this year.

Many of the complaints relate to the lack of transparency about invoicing, an issue that could be resolved if the industry were better regulated, Mr Nicholls [of the IAFD] believes.

He insists standards will only improve once the industry is regulated, forcing all undertakers to adopt higher standards, improve training and provide transparency in their invoicing to clients. “There are no barriers to entry and no licensing in an industry responsible for the burial or cremation of up to 30,000 people a year,” he said.

Whole article here. 

Quote of the week

15 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: music

 “Well, there’s me Nana’s funeral song sorted.”

Commenter Tipatina on the Guardian X Factor order cialis online uk liveblog after hearing Janet Devlin sing ‘Somebody to Love’. 

All things to all people?

15 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: alternative funerals, ceremony, funeral reformers, funeral trends, Religious funerals

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

For better or worse, depending on your viewpoint, you know where you stand with both civil and Catholic funerals – give or take a few 1,000 variations on a theme. However, I’m not sure what to make of this organisation, and would be interested to hear your take on it. For me, the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation seems to be forging a niche for itself that sits firmly on the fence between civil and religious, claiming to design funeral ceremonies where everyone attending, regardless of faith or views, will feel included.

Acknowledging that a funeral today often includes people attending from different faiths or none, the foundation supplies male and female ministers who have followed a two-year training programme with the Interfaith Seminary. It claims this training allows for the recognition of ‘the inner spiritual truths of the individual [which are also] at the heart of the world’s great faith traditions’. It adds: ‘There are countless paths leading to the One God / Truth / Great Spirit / Source-of-All’.

This is clearly not just another Protestant sect as it’s aiming to be as inclusive of agnostics and non-Christians as it is those uncomfortable with the organised Church. In fact, the reference to ‘God’ above is the only one I could find on its website.

Of its ministry, it says: ‘We aim to be of service to people of all faiths or none’, citing as an example ‘those who are seeking spiritual connection and expression, yet feel uncomfortable with conventional religion’.

It continues: ‘We are not creating a new religion, but filling a growing spiritual gap in modern society. It’s not our aim to convert anyone away from their faith, but to support people who wish to enquire more deeply into their own spiritual tradition and their own soul’.

Whether agnostic or religious, might this approach be comforting to some in the context of funerals?

I have my own views, but I’d be interested to hear thoughts from the civil funeral perspective.

Cockup

14 November 2011
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: Co-op

We don’t often flag up Co-op cockups on this blog any more because they dim our spirits. We’d rather spend our time looking for people to praise. Anyway, for what it’s worth: 

A family is refusing to pay for a “funeral from hell” for their mother after a catalogue of problems – including the grave being dug too small. 

Undertakers have been accused of trying to force the coffin of Maureen Shelton, 62, into the grave at Primrose Lane in Huntingdon and then advising the family to go away and come back when it was buried. 

Now her family are refusing to pay Anglia Co-operative Funerals for the £2,600 funeral and have had bailiffs sent round in an attempt to recover the money. [Source] 

No details of the catalogue of problems. A commenter on this story alleges: 

It appears that Coop funeral service has not improved.My Dad died in December 2003,and we employed the Coop for the funeral ,he had lived in the same house for 63 years so we asked for him to be taken from there to the crematorium withe the family following.When we got to the crem I was approached by the funeral director and told there had been a mistake and they had brought the wrong body.They suggested we carry on with the service whilst they went back to swap the bodies.This was obviously refused so we went back to the chapel of rest but rather than a sedate and peaceful final ride for Dad it was more like a race at about 70mph as all other funerals booked for that chapel had to be delayed.The Coop did not charge us for the funertal but did not offer any compensation for the upset and distress,and thoughorly ruined the final farewell to my Dad.

The Living Dead

14 November 2011
Charles
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Categories: Embalming

Enterprising US undertaker Cecil Gilmore is set to offer an enhanced embalming service. He wants to go beyond the casketed look and display his dead doing what they always did — very much in the spirit of the Puerto Rican embalmer who, in July 2010, displayed a miraculously embalmed David Morales Colon on his motorbike. 

If a father or husband was an avid fisherman, pose him in his waders and favorite shirt, his cap festooned with lures, holding his lucky fishing rod.

If mother is most remembered for relaxing while watching TV, pose her on a bed with the remote in her hands.

Or, if the deceased was known for his love of motorcycles, pose him in his jeans, vest, bandana – even sunglasses – on his bike of choice.

“The idea is to make people look like they are living, or just sleeping,” Gilmore said. [Source]

This may strike you as being exactly what taxidermists do with stuffed animals. Alternatively, you may think it is the way to go. 

Here at the GFG we preserve our notorious stance of ambivalence in all things. 

Santa turns Reaper

13 November 2011
Charles
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Categories: Uncategorised

The Daily Mail reveals rather unsportingly that East Enders junkies are going to be rewarded this Christmas day with the festive death from maybe cancer, possibly a heart attack, who knows, of the character known as Pat Evans. 

What is it about the British??

Peter Roebuck

13 November 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: suicide

I once saw Peter Roebuck, the ex-Somerset cricket captain who yesterday took his own life. He was pacing up and down outside the pavilion while the pitch dried out, deep in thought, consuming a brooding cigarette.  An analytical, introspective loner, he was no stranger to melancholy and controversy. The title of his first book, ‘It Never Rains — A Cricketer’s Lot’ tells you something about his emotional disposition. 

The day I saw him Ian Botham was still a Somerset player. (When Roebuck got rid of Joel Garner and Viv Richards because he reckoned them over the hill, Botham decamped in fury to Worcestershire.) I remember sitting watching a damp afternoon’s play. Botham square cut a ball to the boundary with such effortless power that it dematerialised as he hit it and rematerialised a second later as it crashed into the boundary board. It was as sweet a shot as I have ever seen. 

Cricket has a very high suicide rate in the UK, double the national average. In South Africa the rate is even higher. Cricketers are the only sportsmen so afflicted. 

But suicide is not a problem in the women’s game. And it is pretty much unknown in non-Anglo Saxon countries — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the West Indies.  Do you know why?

There’s a very good tribute to Roebuck by team mate Vic Marks in the Guardian here. 

Remembering Josh

13 November 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Art and death, ceremony, coffins, funeral directors, funeral music, funeral photography, Grief

“REMEMBERING JOSH” is a film that records the life of our son Josh, as it was remembered at his funeral early in 2011. Josh Edmonds died in a road accident in while traveling South East Asia in January 2011. He was 22 years old. Our film is both a tribute to him, with many wonderful musical contributions and anecdotes, as well as a reflection on what it has meant to us to organize a fairly ambitious event in such a short space of time. Over 300 people attended, many of who were meeting for the first time having come buy generic cialis from different parts of Josh’s life. We found that organising the funeral ourselves without recourse to a traditional funeral director, was of immense value as we struggled to come to terms with our loss. We’d like to thank all those who helped and supported us, and without whom this event would not have been possible.

Here’s the full film of Josh’s funeral made by his parents, Jimmy and Jane. James Showers characterises a good funeral as “a collision of grief and beauty”.  No one has ever expressed it better. James is the ‘non traditional’ funeral director in this film. 

Purgatory

11 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death

THIS IS PURGATORY was filmed by Jimmy Edmonds for Random Stroud, an arts project in which 24 artists were invited to respond to randomly selected map references in the Stroud Valleys area of Gloucestershire, England

Jimmy’s map reference was Purgatory Wood a small copse just to the south east of Swift’s Hill in the Slad Valley.

But what starts out as an attempt to find out why Purgatory Wood is so called quickly becomes a fascinating series of character studies and a reflection on life now and the life hereafter.

This will be one of the best half hours of your life. If you don’t watch this film you will kick yourself from here to eternity. 

This is Purgatory (Part Two) from JIMMY Edmonds on Vimeo.

Green Fields of France

11 November 2011
Charles
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Categories: Uncategorised

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can’t help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you “The Cause?”
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Hat tip to Jailhouse Lawyer