Author: Charles

A price worth paying for good value

25 October 2013
Charles
31 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

How many shops do you know where the goods aren’t priced on the grounds that if you need to know the cost you can’t afford it? Outside a posh, celeb-prowled zone or two in London, my guess would be none.

Would you use a shop that didn’t display price tickets? Or a restaurant that didn’t have a menu in the window?

Or an undertaker who didn’t post their prices on their website?

That last question is a joke, of course. It would take an especially scullionly, vulgar little cut-price upstart to betray the dignity of a noble profession by doing any such thing. A Director of Funerals lives to serve the living by caring for their dead. He (or, okay, maybe she) is a member of a secular priesthood untainted by unworthy worldly concerns.

Enough satire, you protest. Cut it out. All right.

A great many good, decent, likeable undertakers agonise over whether to post prices on their website. They do this out of deference to the notion that to post prices would be to betray the decorum of their calling. Something like that. Nothing to do with upselling, of course. Truly. Good, businesslike undertakers despise upselling and build their margin into their professional fee, so they don’t need to.  

But failure to equip a potential client with what they need to know before they step into the premises places that client at a disadvantage that can only breed insecurity, cynicism and resentment. It looks like lack of openness. It is. It looks puzzling. It is. In an age in which shoppers do their price research on the internet before buying so much as a washing-up bowl, their inability to access this vital information in advance of the negotiation is a matter of angry frustration.

No wonder so many feel expertly ripped off.

The reason why so many good undertakers agonise over whether or not to post their price online is because they are torn between meeting the expectations of the market and deferring to the retrograde opinions of their fellow undertakers. Here’s a dilemma in which there can only be one winner. If you truly place the interests of your clients first, get em up there. Join the real world.

And stop spending so much time trying to impress each other.

This blog is no enemy of the principle of consolidation. A well-conducted corporate operator could bring great benefits to funeral shoppers. It was consumers who bankrupted the high street, remember, not Tesco, who simply offered the alternative of fresher, better, cheaper.

But the corporates operating in Funeralworld aren’t Tescos.  They’re not idiots, either. Their business model thrives because they know that bereaved people shop blind. It crumbles as soon as they start shopping with their eyes open.

If you can offer a handbuilt Morgan for the price of a mass-produced Fiesta, if you can offer a top-notch funeral for £500, £1000 less than Dignity and co, why on earth wouldn’t you tell the world about that? 

The price-savvy consumer is the good undertaker’s best friend. Get em up. 

WE ESPECIALLY LIKE Paul Sullivan, Kingfisher Funerals and Evelyn’s Funerals. Is there anyone we’ve missed? 

You’ve been ad

24 October 2013
Charles
16 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

Coop ad

 

How good to see three local family undertakers in Devon club together to advertise themselves. Really nice, professional piece of work — proper job as they say down there. (Click it to make it bigger.) 

(First one of you wins a cigar)

What to say when someone’s history?

24 October 2013
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: celebrants, eulogy

The job of the life-centred funeral is clear enough. It serves two purposes: first, to meditate on the now-complete life lived; second, to spell out all that has not been lost. While the dead person will no longer be an active presence in the mourners’ lives, their example will continue to be influential, and memories of them will continue to give pleasure — after a period of grieving when those memories are likely to give more pain than pleasure.

At the heart of a life-centred funeral lies, therefore, the treatment of the life lived. The composition of this treatment calls for extraordinary craft skills by the eulogist, who must judiciously select what goes in and what doesn’t  The audience hasn’t got all day. They know what they want to hear. They don’t want to hear all the stuff the person did, they want to hear about what made the person tick. This is best expressed through expertly crafted anecdotes which encapsulate ‘what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed’. A good eulogist articulates and illuminates the essence of the dead person — brings them alive — and accomplishes all that in around 7 unhurried minutes. It’s one of the most difficult writing briefs in the known universe.

Not surprising, therefore, that it’s oft done so badly. The lazy or inept eulogist opts for the cop-out of a flat-lining chronological narrative — a story which can only end unhappily. Up and down the land today crematoria will sullenly resound with the bathetic words “Henry James Barnett was born on…”

For a celebrant too busy to think (there are far too many of these), this makes a funeral script easy enough to write on autopilot. They would defend themselves by saying that this is what the family told him or her. Not good enough, pal.

The size and quality of a person’s character is not necessarily in direct proportion to amount of stuff they did. For example, the lives of many people are not defined by the jobs they do. But in the case of a family for whom the funeral eulogy is the first draft of the official biography, the agreed (likely enough retouched) life story, what is the eulogist to do with all the stuff the family wants in, but which simply either won’t fit or won’t hold an audience?

The answer lies in the document produced at some expense but all-too-soon dropped in the bin as of no lasting value, namely, the service sheet or booklet. This is the place for the timeline, the start-to-finish life story with all the house moves and career shifts and professional achievements — the CV stuff.

Such a narrative would complement the words of the eulogy — and might even repeat some of them. There’d be no time to read it at the funeral, of course, so people would take it home and peruse it at leisure. It’d be of lasting value, so they’d be far less likely to guiltily slip it with the recycling. All at once the service booklet would start earning its keep. 

Can marriage between a creative and a control freak be a happy one?

23 October 2013
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: celebrants, funeral directors

The relationship between architects and project managers in the construction industry is always icky. The architect is the creative visionary; the project manager is the person tasked with co-ordinating suppliers and service providers so as to bring the vision in on time, in budget, to the client’s satisfaction. Architects tend to want more than they can have. “No, we can’t use those bricks,” a project manager will say, “they’re too expensive.” Architects reckon they are in charge; project managers know they are. Architects often feel that the tail is wagging the dog.

Not unlike the relationship between a celebrant and an undertaker, perhaps?

An analysis by Gerrit Muller of Buskerud University College highlights the differences between celebrants and undertak… I mean, architects (A) and project managers (PM). In a comparison of caricature characteristics of both parties, Muller suggests that:

A = independent, PM = conformist; A = critical, PM = demanding; A = curious, PM = control minded.

Leadership values.  A = based on knowledge and vision; PM = based on key performance indicators – title creates expectations – task-driven. 

Goal.  A = best possible solution; PM = highest hierarchical level. 

Design. A = elegant; PM = if it works it’s okay. 

Application.  A = perfect fit; PM = no complaints. 

Changes.  A = fact of life; PM = avoid changes. 

In order to get the best from the relationship, Muller proposes:

Empowerment

Delegation

Leadership instead of task-driven management

Process orientation instead of hierarchical organizations

Teamwork

Mutual Respect

Recognition of diversity and nonconformity

Reverse Appraisal

Stimulating open communication

 

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…

22 October 2013
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Assisted dying, Assisted suicide, euthanasia

An average 68 per cent of Canadians favour the legalisation of assisted suicide, but the Court of Appeal in British Columbia has just rejected it. Read more here. 

The arguments for and against assisted dying, assisted suicide, dying with dignity, call it want you will, will be with us for some time to come, but the outcome is already perfectly evident: in the end we’ll buy it. The debate we’re in now is very close in kind to the debate older readers remember from their youth about abortion. The big difference is that, aesthetically, letting old and very ill people depart in peace is much more ‘acceptable’ than aborting foetuses. 

In response to the recent setback, the Canadian National Post published letters for, against and don’t know. They illuminate the arguments well. Here’s a selection:

FOR

* There is no difference between refusing to give pain-killing drugs to patients dying in agony and refusing to assist them in ending their lives when these drugs are no longer effective. Both are unconscionable acts of prolonging torture. Our fellow citizens have no authority to decide when we give birth, nor when we die. Our lives are our own, and when or how we decide to die is up to us.

* Sane citizens must be given the right to die controlled and dignified deaths. If religious people wish to prolong the suffering of their loved ones in some perverted acknowledgement of the “gift of life,” fine, but do not impose that tenet on the rest of us. 

* The average life expectancy in 1908 was 48 years old. So the idea of living beyond our best-before date is a relatively new dilemma for the human race. I use the word “dilemma” because except for the fortunate few who will one day fall asleep and never wake up, most of us will experience a long, painful, debilitating, demoralizing, humiliating drawn-out demise. It’s time to rethink the end of one’s life.

AGAINST

* From legally assisted suicide, there is one short step to legal murder demanded by survivors who are not up to caring or even tolerating having to deal emotionally with death and dying.

* Yes, we all die, and the wages of sin is death. We do not want to suffer much while we are dying. But are not our doctors efficiently trained to control pain? God teaches us what dying with dignity means and it does not mean to kill oneself. It means to trust His promises and to lean on His Son for the forgiveness of our sins and in Him die in peace. That’s dying with dignity.

* We cannot just accept someone’s death wish and agree that their lives are no longer worth living. Instead, we must ease their suffering, provide comfort, and restore their sense of dignity and value.

* I am wary of any law that makes it easier for somebody to kill another person.

* It is time for the dying or suffering to accept the final burden of their own demise and not open the Pandora’s Box of state-assisted suicide. How long would the choice be theirs and not someone else’s?

DON’T KNOW

* I can imagine that if I were in excruciating pain from illness and the prognosis was dire, I’d want the right to be able to end my life — and quickly. However, that is not my situation and so it’s disingenuous of me to presume that I’d actually know what I’d want. This debate should only take place between people who are facing an imminent end to their lives, as well as their loved ones who are watching them suffer. Armchair philosophers should take their wise thoughts elsewhere.

Kingfisher Funerals get behind home funeralists

21 October 2013
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: funeral directors, home funerals

Kingfisher

Kingfisher Funerals of St Neots have bought a Flexmort body-cooling system for people who want to care for their dead at home. Andrew Hickson, who founded the business in 2010, tells us: 

“We have seen a marked increase in requests from the family of someone who has died, who do not want the person removed from home to a funeral director’s office.

“We are dedicated to providing our clients with exactly the service they want, not the one we want them to have. We have watched families who have kept a body at home using ice packs, and the emotional value of the experience for them has been incredible. Ice packs can only provide a certain level of cooling however, and need to be changed frequently, especially immediately after death. The Flexmort system can be placed on someone as soon as death has been certified, and left in place until the funeral, with no need for maintenance at all. 

“We are happy to allow bereaved families to borrow the system free of charge when we are appointed as funeral directors acting on their behalf. If clients wish to adopt a more DIY approach to arranging a funeral, we would make a charge to cover the loan and delivery of the unit.”

Corpse roads – then and now

20 October 2013
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, burial, coffins, funeral customs, Ghosts

Back in the middle ages, established churches hung on to their right to bury the dead when new churches were built nearby to serve a growing population. Burial rights brought in revenue.

This meant that parishioners of churches without a right to bury their dead were compelled to take them to a church which did using designated corpse roads. Some were just a few miles in length, others much longer. 

These medieval corpse roads, so called, were pre-dated by long, straight tracks found all over the world along which the dead were carried and which were reckoned to channel the spirits of the dead.

All manner of superstitions attach to corpse roads, and if you want to find out lots more, quickly, you can’t do better than turn to Wikipedia, which has an excellent entry on the phenomenon. The tradition of toting a corpse feet first derives from these superstitions. It was supposed the prevent the spirit of the dead person from legging it back home. It would be interesting to conduct a poll of undertakers to discover how many actually know this. 

A quick google reveals just some of the corpse roads — also called coffin roads, lych ways, etc — which remain walkable: 

The Lych Way in Devon

Hindon to Enford (Wilts)

Teffont to Dinton (Wilts)

Bohenie to Achluachrach

Pass of Glencoe to Dalness

Ulverston to Coniston

Wasdale Head to Eskdale via Burnmoor

Mardale (Haweswater) to Shap via the Goggleby Stone

Rydal to Grasmere via Rydal Water and Dove Cottage

Arnside to Beetham via the Fairy Steps

Johnby to Greystoke

Garrigill to Kirkland

Borrowdale to Brigham

Bellever to Lydford (Devon)

Zennor St Ives (Cornwall)

Aston to Blockley and Stretton to Blockley (Warks, Gloucs)

We still have working corpse roads, of course; we just don’t call them that. We call them the ring road or the bypass. 

One of you dyed-in-the-wool deathies out there ought to compile a gazetteer of corpse roads so that fellow-deathies everywhere can catch some fresh air and keep the memory alive. 

A C of E funeral

19 October 2013
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: funeral, Religious funerals

To Salisbury and the funeral of the mother of two friends.

The venue is the cathedral, no less. We get there in good time, but not good enough: the place is almost full and we forage for a seat at the back.

Who’s the celeb who died, you ask. No one you’ve heard of. Andrea was the wife of a Wiltshire vicar who touched the hearts of everyone she met. Her achievement was that she was a first-rate human being. All these people testify to that, having got themselves here at, doubtless, some inconvenience.

The service is billed as one of gratitude and thanksgiving. It’s the full and formal Anglican rite. As we wait for it to begin we contemplate the poem by RS Thomas in the service booklet, The Other. It begins:

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl
calling

And concludes:

And the
thought comes
of that other being who is
awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

There’s a procession comprising all manner of appropriately attired officiants, and the Bishop of Ramsbury bringing up the rear. It’s a proper procession. The nave of the cathedral is 134 metres long and the land-speed record for getting from start to finish is nowhere near lowered on this occasion.

The ritual wraps itself lovingly around Andrea. There’s a bidding prayer which commemorates Andrea’s “love of being a parish priest’s wife who welcomed all who came to the vicarage door” at the same time as proclaiming the faith that “all who believe in [Christ] will rise with him”. I guess there’s a good sprinkling of unbelievers and agnostics present, but it’s by no means alienating. The tone is humane and gentle.

There are good hymns – ‘Angel-voices ever singing’; ‘Brother, sister, let me serve you’; and ‘Tell out my soul’. There are prayers and communion.

A family friend delivers a tribute which deftly balances biography, naming of attributes and affectionate anecdotes. A woman from the Mother’s Union pays tribute to Andrea’s dedication to that organisation. The bishop speaks with admirable concision. His text is George Herbert’s Bitter-Sweet:

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.

There is singing from the choir – Gelineau’s setting of Psalm 23 and Byrd’s Agnus Dei from the Mass for Four Voices – which conjures all the usual adjectives: timeless, ethereal, etc. In a building like this, with the gloaming settling, all the usual adjectives fall short by a distance.

An hour and forty minutes later, it is over: “Andrea, go forth upon your journey … May your portion this day be in peace.”

And the procession makes its way back down the nave which Andrea walked up, years ago, as a young bride.

Should women be allowed to go to funerals?

17 October 2013
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, funerals in other cultures

I don’t suppose there can be many ‘indigenous’ funerals held these days which prohibit the presence of women. There may be one or two redoubts in Presbyterian Scotland. Bucking the trend in the wider community, though, many Muslims prohibit their presence. 

Why ban women from funerals? To spare their feelings, mostly. Or put it another way, because they can’t be relied on to hold themselves in check. Women, as is well known, are easily subverted by the slightest emotion. They are prone to making a scene and creating disorder. 

This, at least, is the consideration which informs a thumbs-up for female funeral attendance at Muslim funerals in America, where Shaykh Luqman Ahmad has delivered this ruling: 

based upon the fact that Muslims in America, as a rule do not engage in the practices of wailing, tearing clothing, beating the cheeks, and hollering out bad statements at funerals, and the evidence from the sunna of the Prophet (SAWS) and the view of the scholars we have mentioned, it is not haram for Muslim women to accompany the funeral procession to the grave sites as long as they are able to control themselves … If there is a probability that attendance at the burial will stir emotions to a degree where unlawful behavior will likely occur … then it is prohibitively disliked.

Women: know your limits. 

Fifty years since JFK’s assassination

17 October 2013
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

We’re approaching the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, at 12.30pm on Friday, 22 November 1963. In the wake of a media deluge, here’s a video of the state funeral on Monday, 25 November.

Preparations were speedy. The president’s body was brought back to Washington and, after 24 hours in the White House, the coffin was taken to lie in state at the Capitol, viewed thoughout Sunday by thousands of mourners. Meanwhile, representatives of countries from all over the world flew in to DC for the Monday requiem mass at St Matthew’s Cathedral, after which the president was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

From Abide with Me to the Last Post, from John-John’s salute as his father’s coffin went by to Jackie Kennedy’s mourning veil, the funeral seems remarkably timeless and universal.