Author: Charles

Adopt a grave

19 December 2014
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: cemeteries, memorialisation

Your average grave is visited for an average of around 15 years. After that, neglect can leave it looking unloved and anonymous, creating exactly the opposite effect to the one intended. There are those who see a cemetery as a monument to the vanity of human wishes. I’m one of them. Remembrance all too quickly passes into amnesia. Forever in our hearts? Who did you say you were exactly?

An exception to this rule is a military cemetery. Military folk maintain a hold on the hearts of the living longer than everyday heroes who die in civvies. Make what you want of that.

In Europe a number of American war cemeteries have an adopt-a-grave scheme. Local citizens, hundreds of them, adopt the grave of a dead soldier. They bring flowers and keep it looking tended. There are even waiting lists. More here.

Some 65 years ago Mrs Arpots (91) adopted the grave of British soldier Leonard Raymond Allison at the British War Cemetery in Brunssum. Still she is in good contact with the soldier’s family in the UK. “The mother of the soldier in particular was very grateful that we maintained the grave of her son. For us it was the least we could do after having been liberated.”

Just like Mrs. Arpots people from Brunssum have adopted a grave immediately following the liberation. They not only looked after the graves but also continued staying in touch with the family of the deceased soldier. Mrs. Arpots: “The family found it consoling and assuring that we maintained those graves for them. Leonard was their beloved son or brother. We have seen them frequently, and then they stayed with us or we stayed with them. We also received baby clothes and toys from them. We always had a very special relationship. I really enjoyed looking after the grave and maintain our relationship with the family.”

In the UK, Darwen has an adopt-a-grave scheme for its war dead, each grave marked by its Portland stone headstone. At Sutton Veny Primary School near Warminster, Wiltshire, pupils tend the graves of New Zealand and Australian soldiers in the local churchyard.

In Buxton, Derbyshire, an adopt-a-grave initiative was launched in 2011:

Mrs Luton said: “We had an open day and had to approach people with this odd idea of tending the grave of a stranger. “Eighteen people said yes on the day and more have joined since. We let them walk through the churchyard and choose a grave which appealed to them. “I don’t know how they chose but nobody wanted the same grave, it was incredible. “Many have wonderful details on the stones and there are a lot of children, and a lot of people have chosen children’s graves.”

In the same civvy spirit, James Norris of DeadSocial has just launched an Adopt a Grave initiative at Brompton cemetery. The idea is to enable Londoners to commune with death and nature at the same time as tidying up a bit:

Many of us do not visit green spaces on a regular basis due to a not owning a property with a garden and the environmental conditions in which we live. Due to the nature of urban cities we rarely get to ‘work on the land’ or immerse ourselves in an area of natural beauty. By granting participants permission to tend a currently untended, historic grave we hope that the natural relationship between participants, nature and death is addressed and somewhat rekindled.  We encourage those who adopt a grave to find out the story about the person whose grave they are tending. 

Love it.

An offer they can’t refuse

18 December 2014
Charles
12 Comments
Categories: funeral plans

A number of independent funeral directors have sent us a copy of a letter they have received from Golden Charter:

Dear _________

The latest Funeral Planning Authority statistics confirmed that Golden Charter is now the leading seller of funeral plans. As a non-seller, your existing plans currently do not attract our seller’s additional premium, payable when the plan matures. To date, Golden Charter has held this seller’s premium in the Trust in the hope that your company would, one day, become a seller of Golden Charter plans. 

However you, along with other non-selling independents, have declined several invitations to become sellers, and it appears unlikely that you will join us in the future. This means we are now holding money in the Trust which is unlikely to be required and much of that contingency can be released for redistribution to our shareholders and exclusive sellers in the years ahead. 

In November the board unanimously agreed that those funeral directors who do not actively sell Golden Charter funeral plans after 31 December 2015 will no longer be eligible for this historic premium on existing plans, even if they should become an active seller at a later date. 

…

It is not too late … I would urge you to reconsider …

Of course, this is not the only attraction. Sellers of Golden Charter plans also receive allocations of future funerals. We allocate far more plans or legal charges than all the other companies combined and the volume is growing rapidly. Gaining your share of that future market must make becoming a seller worthy of consideration. 

… 

In closing, it is my hope that you will take this opportunity to join with Golden Charter, and become part of the success story owned by and run entirely for the benefit of independent funeral directors.

The letter is signed by Michael Corish, Managing Director.

We rise again!

15 December 2014
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

Sorry if you missed us. Something to do with hostile action by corporate enemies of the GFG the server. A huge thank you to Ian ‘Harry’ Harris at Carronmedia for his delicate touch with a big spanner and cold chisel. There was an uncomfortable period when we thought there might be no way back. 

What is an undertaker for, really?

12 December 2014
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: funeral directors

“Most people in the funeral industry are servants by nature, but it’s time that we took that servant nature and put it to better use by aiding you in the process of caring for your dead. Instead of doing it ourselves, we now need to be teachers, and not just directors; we need to be mentors and not just morticians. We need to reintroduce you to the value of caring for your dead.”

US 6th generation undertaker Caleb Wilde in a TED talk here. 

“… caring for the dead is not neurosurgery requiring esoteric knowledge and the skills of experts. People have the social savvy and wisdom to do these things themselves, and centuries of our forebears managed to accomplish them without benefit of clergy or mortician.

When funeral directors and clergy realise that people can perform these actions quite adequately without us, ironically a window of understanding opens through which we can see what our proper roles might be and how it can be that people can do this better with us. And what is this proper role? To put it succinctly, the task of both funeral professionals and clergy is to help people do this very human thing more humanely.

That is why, when it comes to funeral professionals, the old title of “undertaker” is so apt. People do not need to have their funerals “directed,” any more than they need their lovemaking, birthing, bathing, eating, laboring and going about the trials and obligations of everyday living directed. Women in labor don’t need a birth director, they need a midwife. In the same way, people caring for and burying their dead don’t need a funeral “director”; they need people who will undertake to help them accomplish these tasks well.”

Thomas Long, theologian, in The Good Funeral

Wilde is reckoned to be on the progressive wing of the funerals business and Long is considered a reactionary. 

Intellectual poverty

10 December 2014
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: funeral cost

“People are also turning to alternatives to the traditional funeral. Some are holding do-it-yourself funerals, and even having to bury relatives in their back garden. A number of companies are offering cut-price funerals, including “direct” cremations that have no formal service attached to them.”

That was Emma Lewell-Buck MP presenting the Funeral Services Bill in the House of Commons yesterday and somehow managing to name-check Royal London three times in the first 4 paragraphs.  

You’ve read about this because it’s everywhere — the lurid claim that disadvantaged people are burying their dead in their back gardens. I expect you felt, as we did at the GFG, that Ms Lewell-Buck under-egged her argument. For she must know as well as us that poor people are routinely and in sharply rising numbers also disposing of their dead in wood-chippers, acid baths, on garden barbecues and in country lay-bys. 

 What’s odd/interesting/remarkable is that no one seems to have queried her claim. Anybody in possession of a right mind would, you think, have smelled an XL rat and called her bluff. 

 Nope.  The readiness of the great British public, including the great British press pack, to suspend their incredulity when presented with ocean-going baloney about funerals is amazing.

 So, well done Ms L-B, you seem to have got away with it. Well done for stigmatising DIY funerals and direct cremation while you were about it. Well done for branding a public health funeral a pauper’s funeral. And well done for distracting people from serious discussion of the issues. 

 We are sorry to hear that your Bill will lapse due to lack of parliamentary time.

Emma

Should he or shouldn’t he?

8 December 2014
Charles
No comments
Categories: Death Cafe

Jon Underwood at Death Café wants to open a permanent, community owned, not for profit Death Café in London. He says:

“Until now, all of our Death Cafes have been pop-up events in local homes or venues. This project is to set up ‘Death Cafe London’, a coffee shop in central London offering people the opportunity to engage with death, however briefly.”

Jon went to see Bernard Crettaz, the originator of the Death café format, in Switzerland to talk the idea over with him. Bernard counselled caution:

“I am scared of creating a new space that becomes a new specialist or a ghetto of death.”

Jon says:

“Though I am personally very keen to progress this, it does not make sense unless there is widespread support from those connected with Death Café — I think the project will be beneficial for society and a chance for a lot of learning and discussion. I have confidence that it will be enjoyable. I think the time is right for this and by offering a place where people can come and engage with death we’ll be doing something we’ll be proud of.   But I can’t proceed unless I know that there are at least a significant number of you with me.”

If you’d like to consider this in more detail and contribute to the discussion, you can do so by going here.

I know Jon would be extremely grateful. I think we all know how much we owe him.

http://deathcafe.com/blog/118/

The product that has turned every sadness into a sales-op and every funeral into a retail event?

4 December 2014
Charles
23 Comments
Categories: funeral plans, pre-need plans

Mail

 

“The ‘buy now, die later’ brand of package deal has meant a lost connection between the sale of funerals and the delivery of them, and with it the loss of face-to-face accountability between buyer and seller that used to provide reliable consumer protection. Now the recipient of the services (the bereaved) and the provider of same (the funeral director) are both perilously out of the loop of the original transaction: a deal often brokered years before, between a commissioned salesperson and the now newly deceased. In such an environment there can be little real accountability.” – Thomas Lynch

Over at the Oldie magazine agony aunt Mary Kenny is talking about funeral plans: JR from South Wales warns that, even when pre-paid, there can be a hefty bill – “she was appalled by the undertaker’s charges after her husband’s recent death.”

Here at the GFG we were invited a couple of days ago by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries IFoA) to contribute to a consultation which will “address concerns regarding actuaries’ involvement with pre-paid funeral plan trusts” and “help them develop a mandatory Actuarial Profession Standard leading to members playing a stronger role in “assessing the financial viability of such trusts and in helping trustees and plan providers ensure that they can continue to provide the funerals they are contracted to provide to planholders.”

Down in Bristol, according to the Daily Mail, “Barbara Graham, 72, was left in tears after salesmen from Golden Charter funeral planners asked her if she wanted to pre-plan her own burial. Despite telling them she was currently battling cancer, the firm called back again a few days later to try and sell her the same service.” 

We’ve had quite a lot of angry reaction to this, so we asked Golden Charter to respond. This is what they said:

Golden Charter do not cold call. Any agency from whom we receive leads complies fully with all relevant legislation and codes of conduct. Despite what you may have read we did not contact her after being told she had cancer. We did not call her twice in a week. We contacted her on the 20th October. Erroneously we left that lead in the list that could be called, as she informed us that she had arrangements in place. On the 6th November we called her again at which stage she informed us of her health issues. Our representative apologised and removed her from our list.

It seems Mrs Graham took part in a third-party survey and indicated that she was interested in funeral planning. A third-party survey is “a survey done by a third party research company sometimes by phone, sometimes online, sometimes on the high  street or in retail shopping centres where people are asked if they are interested in a specific range of products. If they indicate they are, and the person consents to being contacted, then these companies offer those details for a consideration to organisations who sell those services.”

It goes without saying that Golden Charter deplore the Mail’s failure to get in touch and check facts.

What do we think? We think that funeral planning is inherently a vexed business. There are people passionately for and people passionately against.

Over in the US, Thomas Lynch is passionately against:

“The aggressive pre-selling of funeral wares is a late-twentieth-century invention, driven entirely by vendor interests and the cash hunger of consolidators”

Boomers “love these things. Planned parenthood, prenuptials, prearranged funerals – always this hopeful notion that we might pre-feel the feelings … the sense that these unpredictable existential events might be turned into manageable retail experiences.”

“’You don’t want to be a burden to your children, do you?’ Why shouldn’t I be a burden to my children? My children have been a burden to me. Lovely burdens, every one of them … And they will be paying for [my funeral] emotionally, financially, actually. Since they have to live with the decisions, why shouldn’t they make them? … If the burden of my death, borne honourably, makes them feel as capable as bearing the sweet burden of their births has made me feel, I can do them the favour of leaving well enough alone.”

“The pie of funeral expenses and revenues, formerly distributed among providers of goods and services, rarely provided more than single digit profits. Now the slices were many more and accordingly narrower – a commission for the contract seller, a piece for the referral and finder’s fees, something for the marketing and management of the pre-need account and, of course, a profit for the financier … These transactional expenses, which paid for neither mortuary services or merchandise, came out before the funeral director and the clergy, the florist and newspapers, the soloist and cemetery, stood in line for theirs. It was money spent on the shuffling of paper.”

“The junk-mailed, telemarketed, bargain-in-the-briefcase brand of pre-sold funeral service that has turned every sadness into a sales-op and every funeral into a retail event has not been good for the funeral, the funeral consumer or the funeral director. Nor has it been good for their [professional] associations.

“… there ought to be no profit in in pre-need transactions … the buyer, not the seller, should initiate the transaction.”

Finally, Lynch quotes Howard C Raether: “If funeral directors insist on soliciting preneed funerals, they are in fact prearranging the funeral of their profession.”

Do feel free to sound off. Passionately.

Pauper-bashing?

3 December 2014
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: Arranging a funeral, funeral cost, Pauper funerals, Public Health funeral, Social Fund Funeral Payment

FREE FUNERALS HERE!

I bet you’ve never seen a banner outside your local registrar’s office with those words on it.

Because the free (aka public health) funeral is, if not a well-kept secret, not something councils bang on about. Its minimalist aesthetic might make it irresistibly attractive to the middle classes.

Seriously, the public health funeral enables us to absolve ourselves of the task of disposing of the body of kinsperson for whom, for whatever reason, we feel no responsibility, whether or not they did or didn’t, could or couldn’t, put aside enough money to pay for their funeral.

The public health funeral also enables those of us of limited means to say: I haven’t got the dough and I don’t want to get into debt over this; you do it. In these days of ‘funeral poverty’ the public health funeral offers a lifeline for an increasing number of people. Here at the GFG we always invite people of limited means to consider it — so much better than falling prey to a loan shark. The overall number of people who opt for it remains strikingly low, however. It doesn’t yet present a fiscal threat to austerity-stricken councils… but it could if more people knew about it. So it has to be in the interest of a local authority to dissuade people from availing themselves of a public health funeral. More anon. Stick with it.

The legal responsibility on a local authority to dispose of its dead is contained in the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 PIII S21. It states:

It shall be the duty of a local authority to cause to be buried or cremated the body of any person who has died or been found dead in their area, in any case where it appears to the authority that no suitable arrangements for the disposal of the body have been or are being made otherwise than by the authority.

You notice that the Act only uses the word ‘duty’ in respect of the local authority. What about the duty incumbent on the next-of-kin? Is there such a thing?

Well, yes and no.

There is a common law ‘duty to bury’. Because it’s common law it’s not written down and its origins lie somewhere in the mists of time. In 1840 Chief Justice Denman passed this this judgement:

“We have no doubt … that the common law casts on someone the duty of carrying to the grave, decently covered, the dead body of any person dying in such a state of indigence as to leave no funds for that purpose.”

Oh right, m’lud, and who might that someone be?

“It would seem that the individual under whose roof a poor person dies is bound to carry the body decently covered to the place of burial.” 

It’s the householder’s responsibility, that’s whose. And it is as a householder within the meaning of the law, believe it or not, that a hospital accepts responsibility for disposing of paupers who expire on its premises. Does this mean that if you invite a broken-down gentleman of the road into your house and he expires in your kitchen as the kettle boils, you will be expected to fund his funeral? Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?

Not if you’re Brent council, it doesn’t. Brent council (Labour) has no wish to fund more public health funerals than it has to.  In its Framework in respect of the responsibility owed by the local authority to provide financial assistance and / or arrangement of Funerals (2013) it points to “the duty at common law to arrange for a proper disposal of a dead body.” This duty, it says, “falls primarily upon the executors of the deceased.”

Interesting idea. We’ll come back to that.

There’s no doubting the right of a council to reclaim funeral expenses from the estate of the deceased, if there’s anything in it. But from a living person?

Brent thinks so. It thinks it can go after people other than the executor, too. In the event of its having to arrange a public health funeral:

“the Council should notify the next of kin or anyone appointed to act on behalf of the deceased (e.g. Power of Attorney, deputy or financial representative) of the debt and refer this immediately to legal services so that consideration can be given to initiating civil debt recovery proceedings either against the estate or an executor personally if appropriate.”

The council does not intend to pursue householders, you notice, though it correctly assigns responsibility to a hospital to arrange disposal: “where the death occurs in a hospital, the hospital authority is liable, as the person on whose premises the body is situated, to arrange for the burial or cremation of the deceased patient.”

So what about those acting with Power of Attorney or as deputies? Memo to Brent: they are absolved of all responsibility as soon as the person they represent dies (doh). Makes sense, doesn’t it? No, Brent, there’s no coming after them. Nor the financial representative because that is not a meaningful term.

What about executors? Bit of a moving target, I fear. Nominated executors, sadly, cannot be held to their duty and forced to assume the legal status of executor. On the contrary, executors may resign at any time — eg, when the letter from Brent council flops through the letterbox.

Next-of-kin? I have searched high and low for any instance where any nok was ever brought to trial for refusing to accept their ‘duty to bury’. I have searched in vain. I think we can accept that as duties go it is redundant. After all, it’s not so long ago that the estate of Robert Lenkiewecz was allowed by a court of law to retain ownership of the unburied corpse of Diogenes.

Nope, the ‘duty to bury’ is obsolete and has no teeth. Prove me wrong, Brent.

In conclusion, therefore, it seems to me that the Brent has no right to pursue a claim against an executor personally, nor next of kin, nor anyone appointed to act on behalf of the deceased (e.g. Power of Attorney, deputy or financial representative) nor any other living, breathing person, not even you.

I put this to Brent council. I wrote: “An interpretation of the Framework is that it could intimidate anyone who, for whatever reason, declines to undertake the disposal of a dead person.” That was on 9 Oct. I got an automated reply: “Your request has been received and a  member of our team will respond to you within 5 working days.” On 14 Oct I was flattered by a human response: “Your enquiry has been forwarded to the Registration and Nationality Service. They will aim to respond to you directly within 10 working days.”

On 25 Nov I wrote to remind them. They replied: “We confirm that your message has reached our service today and you should receive a response within five working days.”

Did I heck as like. I’ll keep trying, though.

The PM who was cremated before his funeral

2 December 2014
Charles
No comments
Categories: Uncategorised

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Neville Chamberlain (above) died from cancer on 9 November 1940, just six months after he resigned as Prime Minister.

Winston Churchill, his successor, paid tribute to him on 12 November despite the two men having disagreed over the ‘appeasement’ of Hitler: 

‘Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged’. 

This was no funeral eulogy but a speech at the House of Commons, the funeral not taking place until 14 November at Westminster Abbey.

But what stands out in this sequence of events is that Chamberlain was cremated at Golders Green on 13 November, the day before the funeral, and with no ceremony and just two members of his household present. See the newspaper announcement here. 

This break with convention is confirmed in a British Pathe newsreel showing guests arriving at the Abbey ‘to pay homage to the ashes’ of a man of peace — here. 

It’s easy to assume this order had something to do with London being under constant threat of German bombing raids. The distinguished funeral gathering was deliberately not publicised in advance. Perhaps fuel rations were a consideration: why waste time and money driving from Westminster to Golders Green and then back again for the interment of the ashes?

However, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey had some form in being an unlikely champion of cremation due to limited space in a building much in demand for the interment of notable figures. In 1905, the ashes of actor Sir Henry Irving became the first to be interred at the Abbey. By 1911, the dean was insisting the body of botanist Sir Joseph Hooker be cremated if he was to secure a grave in the nave by Sir Charles Darwin. Hooker’s widow declined and buried him in a churchyard at Kew instead.

The practical approach to Chamberlain’s funeral is not the only reason it compares to the modern trend for simplicity. When Churchill awarded him the Order of the Garter, he declined, stating he would ‘prefer to die plain ‘Mr. Chamberlain’ like my father before me, unadorned by any title’. His grave is marked by a modest stone..

Gridlocked in Ross-on-Wye four days before Christmas

1 December 2014
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Hearses

Guest post by David Hall

Christmas is an important time of the year for Vintage Lorry Funerals as all of the 450 Funeral Directors, who display pictures of the 1950 Leyland Beaver, receive a Christmas Card in the second week of December. The process starts in July when David Hall’s wife chooses the most appropriate card for the year. Throughout the year the customer database is updated and during November David is tasked with telephoning everyone on the list to check the details as some people move on, some ladies change their surname and some older people sadly pass away. The exercise is worthwhile enabling David to update Funeral Directors about developments and often work has resulted directly from Christmas Cards.

This was the case during December 2007 when a Vintage Lorry Funerals Christmas Card landed on Ann Bevan’s desk just before she met a Lorry Driver’s Family and David’s second funeral for William Bevan (Ross-on-Wye) was the result. Normally with Ross-on-Wye being only 65 miles from Bradford-on-Avon, David Hall, in order to save a family some money, makes an early start and completes the journey without a night out. However, with the incidence of December frost or fog in the early morning Ann Bevan suggested to David that he should travel up the day before, park in their garage and stay in a local hotel. David uncovered a problem as just like Christmas 2000 years ago, there was no room in the Inn. Every hotel was either fully booked or closed early for Christmas, but luckily Ann knew a local B&B that had a spare room, otherwise David may have had to find a stable!

David arrived in the late afternoon before the funeral and met one of Ann’s sons, Stuart, who looked at the wooden exhibits on the deck in great detail. As the Deceased had started his driving career moving steel coils from Ebbw Vale Steelworks with an ERF lorry, David created a replica 1950 ERF Cab Front and a Steel Coil. Stuart watched David reverse into the garage, moving coffins out of the way to create space. David asked Stuart if he was intending to lock the garage and Stuart replied, ‘If I lock this garage tonight, it will be the first time in 40 years. This is Ross-on-Wye not Knowle West (A less affluent part of Bristol).’

Ann’s son Philip conducted the funeral and just as the lorry was about to leave Ann came running out of the office with a box of chocolate biscuits for David’s family for Christmas. Ross-on-Wye has no by-pass, no ring road, but a one way system that becomes clogged up with vans making deliveries to shop fronts, a scene unchanged from the 1950s. It was only four days to Christmas and the roads were busier than normal. The location of the Funeral Director, house, Church and Crematorium meant that the cortege had to pass down the one way system three times. On the way to the church David experienced very heavy traffic which came to a halt on the roundabout outside Morrisons, whose car park was full and cars were queuing into Morrisons from three roads converging on the roundabout. Normally when traffic is gridlocked, people waiting on roundabout leave space to allow through traffic to pass over the problem unhindered. The 1950s Leyland Beaver’s progress came to a sudden halt caused by a lady driving a green estate car, obstructing the lorry’s route, being stationary on the roundabout queuing into Morrisons. David Hall got out of the cab to remonstrate with this thoughtless driver who was holding up the whole cortege. The lady, who was oblivious to David’s plight, wound down her window and said, ‘I’ve got to get to Morrisons for my sprouts. I’ve been in this queue for 15 minutes.’ David said, ‘The man on my lorry has only 15 minutes left on this earth,’ and the lady just shrugged her shoulders. Luckily at that point one car came out of the car park, the green estate car shot forward and other drivers in the immediate vicinity were sympathetic to David’s problem and remained stationary, allowing the cortege to progress.

When the vintage lorry was parked outside the church whilst the service was taking place an American tourist took interest in the wooden structures and the flowers on the deck. He approached David and said, ‘Oh Gee, when does the carnival start?’ and David replied, ‘When the coffin comes out of the church.’ As the crematorium was half way between Gloucester and Chepstow David elected to go south and take the Old Severn Bridge home. Drivers coming from the west pay no tolls, which are taken on the other carriageway and David had an interesting thought as he trundled along with the Christmas lights of Bristol in the distance. For once at Christmas the wise men didn’t come from the East, Frankincense and Myrrh would be no good to the drivers travelling into Wales, however, they would need plenty of Gold as the toll for a lorry is three times that for a car.

Sadly in 2010 Ann Bevan passed away. She is deeply missed by her family and also David Hall who will never forget her kindness. 

http://www.vintagelorryfunerals.co.uk