News from the Loved One
We may or we may not grow bored with people who tease and tantalise our appetites for new stuff we don’t actually need. Whether you’re the sort of person whose ears prick up when the ads come on, or whether, like me, you go fill your glass with yet more red wine, we accept that […]
The Co-operative reports 21% increase in funeral plan sales
No funeral director, however brilliant, can stimulate an appetite for their product – because we pass their way but once. But a funeral director can sign up tomorrow’s customers today by the ingenious means of selling them a pre-need funeral plan. Pre-need plans look like a very good bet. They’re inflation-proof. And they are easy […]
Take it to them!
It’s widely known in the funeral business that the prices charged by Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity are on the whole higher than those charged by their independent competitors – the family businesses and new start-ups – so many of them passionate ex-Funeralcare employees who tell me they learned everything about what not to do at […]
Funeralcare screwupdate
Naughty scenes, it seems, recently shattered the reverent if gloomy atmosphere of George Pettit and Son, undertakers to the good people of Chester. At the staff Christmas party all manner of impropriety seems to have been committed. In an admirably tight-lipped and understated report, the Sunday People spells out in caps the words STRIPPING, THONG, […]
Local hero
In the matter of household shopping we look back nostalgically to the high street of yesteryear. Ah, those were the days. The butcher, the baker, the grocer. Ooh, hello, Postman Pat! In every shop a cheery greeting. And great personal service. Gone. For ever. Whatever happened to them? You bankrupted them. Yes, you. You trooped […]
Fair trade, slave trade?
Interesting piece in Sunday’s Observer. The Co-op, which boasts about its ethical credentials, has been accused by farmers of making ‘unreasonable’ demands and flexing its market muscle in the wake of its £1.6bn takeover of Somerfield. One large grower has sought advice from both the National Farmers Union and the Office of Fair Trading. Terry […]
Ethical? Ha-ha!
The story so far… Raggedexile 15 Jun 09, 7:05pm Here’s one about Funeralcare. Funeralcare has derecognised the GMB union, in the process securing its expulsion from the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and, I think, the Glastonbury Festival. It has been condemned by the TUC. This is a betrayal of the foundational principles and values of the […]
Ethical? Ha!
Over at the Guardian’s ethical living blog they’ve put the Co-op under the spotlight.You ask, they answer from now til Friday. Well, of course, oh yes, I have been asking (under my moniker of raggedexile, adopted when I was living in joyous penury on the guano-spattered Isle of Portland). Have at them! Good sport! Make […]
The good, the bad and the ugly
I was pretty rude last week about AB Walker and Son. Having been so, I fired off an email to Julian Walker offering a platform for a riposte. Within a few days I had a reply. It was a cheery reply, a generous reply: the reply of a man who is confident but not at […]
Co-operative Funeralcare and the GMB: a response
Here is a response from Phil Edwards, Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, to the stance which The Good Funeral Guide has taken on Co-operative Funeralcare’s derecognition of the GMB union, which I reproduce unmediated. You should read it together with the statement by the GMB. Dear Mr Cowling, Thank you for the opportunity […]
