Publishing event of the year!
The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, […]
Co-operatives co-operate — up to a point
Posted by Charles If any group of people in a local community wished to establish a funeral service inspired and informed by the principles and ideals of co-operativism, what would their position be with regard to the sixth Rochdale Principle if they found themselves in the circumstance of potentially competing with an established co-op funeral […]
Let’s go somewhere nice
Posted by Charles So badly has the image of the co-operative movement been damaged by Co-operative Funeralcare it’s easy to forget that, actually, the model of co-operation retains both its beauty and its potency. A bunch of people come together “to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through jointly owned and democratically […]
Opacity of ownership
George Crump. No, not that one, this one. It’s the adjudication all we Midlanders have been waiting for: the Advertising Standards Authority ruling on an advertisement which, on 8 July 2011, ran as follows: George Crump & Son Funeral Directors Est 1895 … Available day or night – Under the personal supervision of Michael J. […]
Roar deal
Midlands Co-op has announced the launch of its very own trike hearse. The Rocket, they call it. It’s fast, it “lets bike lovers choose a send-off in a style that mirrors the way they lived – not in a sidecar or trailer but on a custom-designed, built-for-speed motorcycle.” Whether or not this is this is […]
Cockup
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 […]
Trouble up at t’crem
Posted by Charles When East Staffordshire Borough and South Derbyshire District Council sold Bretby crematorium to Midlands Co-op there were those who said no good would come of it. It’s been just a few weeks and the doomsayers are already feeling grimly vindicated. The Co-op has been refurbing the car park with this consequence to […]
The inexorable advance of the Co-opoly
Posted by Charles When a public service organisation falters as a result either of market change, incompetence or poor leadership, it doesn’t fix what needs fixing, it repudiates its public service ethos and starts wooing the psychopathic private sector. The public service ethos is systemically unbusinesslike, couldn’t run a whelk stall, etc. The private sector […]
Blessed are those who mourn
Posted by Charles Here’s a thing. RJ Scholes, funeral directors of Stamford in Lincolnshire, have bought a new hearse and a new limousine. So what, I hear you exclaim. What kind? I hear undertakers who read this blog enquire. Ans: Ford Fairlanes. Not all that classy, I wouldn’t have thought, mere Fords? It seems that […]
Damned lies
Here’s a curious case of what looks to me like damnable stupidity whose aftermath is irreparable emotional damage. I can think of no reason for the undertaker in the following case to have behaved as he did – to have forged signatures on an application for cremation. I’d be interested to know what other funeral […]
