Love letter to self

The Co-operative Funeralcare has helped generations of families through difficult times, providing care support and reassurance when it matters most.

The Co-operative Funeralcare has become the country’s leading funeral director because of the high quality of care we deliver through our people working at a local level, who are backed by resources and expertise that only a trusted national organisation can provide.

The Co-operative Funeralcare offers a genuinely local funeral service backed by the strength and reassurance of a unique, caring organisation. Our top priority is to provide the best possible services for our clients and to invest in the communities that we serve. 

It must be true; it says so in the Northwich Guardian

Vicar gets cross

Obviously, any building created by the state at the behest of its citizens should be faith-neutral. It’s a given, it goes without saying, so why say it?

Because the Co-op seems to have fallen foul of an unholy alliance of some townspeople of Shrewsbury in the matter of its £1.7 million refurb of the town’s crematorium.

Built in unenlightened times, Shrewsbury crem is distinguished, as you can see from the photo, by a large cross on its steeply pitched front gable, and another on its chimney of all places.

Reading between the lines of the newspaper report it looks as if the Co-op had quite properly resolved to get rid of the crosses until local vicar Revd Murray McBride assembled a posse of, I don’t know, Christian conservationists or somesuch, and, by means which are not described, corrupted the moral fibre of the Co-op and caused it to backtrack. Said a Co-op spokesperson, “The Co-operative Group is not altering the crematorium in any other way so we are able to confirm that the chimney and crosses will remain.”

We don’t question the earnest wellmeaningness of the Revd McBride, but sorry, mate, you don’t speak for everyone. A cross can only ever be an opt-in.

McBride asserts that “From a design point of view [the crematorium] is a great example of a building from the 1950s or 60s and the crosses form an integral part of that.”

What do you think?

Story in the Shropshire Star here

Stoned

The dolts at The Co-operative Funeralcare have quarried another groundbreaking wheeze. Undistracted by the implosion of Thomas Cook, with which Co-op Travel ill-advisedly merged earlier this year, the blue-skies thinkers at Effcare have cooked up a… wait for it… headstone plan (which they inflatedly call a memorial masonry plan). 

Yes, now you can buy tomorrow’s gravestone at today’s prices. More than that, you can compose your own epitaph and choose the style in which the lettering will be gritblasted by an indifferent machine. 

This is a  thoughtful thing to do. When we die the cognitive powers of our nearest and dearest will, as you know, be paralysed by grief or summick and they’ll find it impossible to express a preference for any hideous shade of imported Chinese or Indian granite let alone be able to come up with something to say on it. In the words of The Co-operative,  “The plan ensures family members are not left with the emotional and financial burden of making these decisions at a very difficult time.”

Asked why the service thought people would want to write their own epitaphs rather than leave it to their loved ones, a spokeswoman said people were increasingly wanting to make personal additions to their own funerals.

She said: “The feedback we are getting is that people want more specific things and they want it to be a celebration of their life. We are getting people to take that one step further … making it more personal and more about you.”

So there you have it. Left to our descendants, our epitaphs will lack both a personal and a celebratory touch.

The thinking is obviously flawed and illogical. Taken with pre-need  plans, this gravestone plan is just another way of shutting out the bereaved from creating fitting memorial events for their dead.

A word to the dying. Say what you’d like, write them a cheque, then butt out; you’ll be dead. This does not apply if there will be nobody close to you looking after things when you’re gone. 

Will anyone, we wonder, explain to those who take out one of these prescriptive plans that the wishes of the living are not legally enforceable after they’re dead? What will the Co-op be saying to people who say ‘We don’t like it; we want something else’? 

Dismal press release here

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 exemplifies gleaming, exemplary efficiency. Hello and good morning, Southern Cross.

Royal Mail has been riven with self-doubt for years, and the great British public has not been helpful in enabling it to evolve in an age of email. Take post offices, the public sector equivalent of Woollies. Both inspire affection levels which rival those for guide dogs and lifeboats in the hearts of all those millions of people who never use them yet campaign so tirelessly against their closure.

The Post Office has been trying for years to stem its losses by selling financial products. As far back as 2007 the ill-effects of this were noted.

Now the Post Office has entered into an unholy alliance with another crap business, The Co-operative:

The Post Office® has today launched a new Funeral Benefit Option as part of its Over 50’s Life Coverplan offering customers £250 towards funeral costs, available from today.

The Funeral Benefit Option is a free addition to the Over 50’s Life Cover plan and means that Post Office customers who choose to arrange their funeral through The Co-operative will receive an additional £250 contribution towards the cost from The Co-operative Funeralcare. Using this £250 contribution, and the lump sum from the Post Office Over 50s plan, The Co-operative will help make the funeral arrangements – simplifying matters for family and friends. [Full text here]

When a public sector organisation makes an assault the market share of honest, decent traders and, thereby, damages the best interests of consumers, it can truly said to have lost the plot.

Making doubly sure

Back in April I reported the story of the undertaker who forged a client’s signature on a cremation form  and then had the body cremated without their knowledge. The body was that of a 26 week-old boy, Sonny. His parents had wanted to dress him and put special items in his coffin. Read it here.

Sonny’s parents, Mr and Mrs Lau, asked me to publicise the case because they don’t want anyone else to suffer as they have. We can’t know what it feels like to have gone through what they did; such a thing is unimaginable. On top of it all they had to contest the obdurate lies of the undertaker.

Now, with the support of their local MP, they are asking the Ministry of Justice to require two signatures on an application for cremation, and for those signatures to be witnessed.

In an email to me Mrs Lau says, “Co-op need to be named and shamed. They had no respect for us and did nothing to support us throughout this ordeal … Fingers crossed I will be able to raise awareness prior to some legislation being introduced. I wondered kindly if you could blog the BBC report on your fine blog. I know it’s repetitive but think that the court report never captured the pain that we endured for the 9 months. I do get upset every time I talk about what happened to us but I gather strength knowing that everything I do is for my son.”

Read the full BBC report here.

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 directors can read between the lines here.

The case is reported on the this is Devon website. Here’s what happened:

Mrs Lau, aged 30, fought back tears as she told the court how she learned last June that her unborn 26-week baby had died. Two days later she endured the heartbreak of giving birth to the stillborn boy, whom the couple named Sonny.

On July 2, while a post-mortem examination was carried out in Oxford, they attended the Plymouth Crownhill branch of Co-operative funeral services and met with Durden who, they told the court, answered their questions about what was available.

However, unable to decide at that stage, they left with lists of costs and visited a memorial company to find out about gravestones, plaques and memorials.

By July 9 they were told by the funeral home that Sonny’s remains were back from Oxford and they could proceed with funeral arrangements.

Over that weekend they agreed to cremation and contacted Durden on July 13, adding they wanted an envelope, containing Sonny’s birth certificate, an origami paper key and an origami paper star, to be placed in the casket.

However, Durden – who had worked at the firm for 10 years, but was manager for only 18 months – claimed he never received the call and no-one passed him any such message. He also denied saying the couple could dress their son in clothes of their choice.

On July 22, Mr Lau phoned Durden who told them their boy had been cremated the previous day at Bodmin crematorium. When the couple went to Bodmin the following day, staff showed them the forms authorising the cremation. When the couple saw the forged signatures, police were called. Durden denied any wrongdoing, claiming Mrs Lau was so distressed she forgot signing the two forms on the July 2 meeting. Durden – who was later sacked from his job – was fined £400, ordered to pay £15 victim surcharge and £350 court costs.

The link to this story was supplied to me by Mrs Lau who, in her email, adds: “This should be made aware nationwide and should never ever be allowed to happen again.

 

Counting the takings

The Co-operative Funeralcare’s trading profit last year (2010) was £46,000,000, achieved from 100,333 funerals. They performed 4000 more funerals than in 2009, and profits are up £7.7 million.

£9.5m was invested in vehicles and £11.1m in funeral homes.

Bond sales were up 29 per cent on 2009.

Funeral Excellence Scores, calculated from the consumer survey below, stand at 91.5, which is 0.5 higher than the target score.

1. Did you receive all the information you needed at the time of the arrangement?

2. Did you feel that we had fully explained to you what would happen on the day of the funeral?

3. Did we contact you to confirm the arrangements before the day of the funeral?

4. How would you rate our service… At the time of the arrangement?

5. How would you rate our service… On the day of the funeral?

6. Would you use our services again?

Funeral numbers for this year aren’t as good as they might. They are 435 down on last year and 1060 fewer than budgeted for. Week 14 has been better, though. Numbers are 324 better than last year, though 160 fewer than budgeted for.

Pre-paid funeral plan sales are healthy. 8919 have been sold so far this year, 2287 more than budgeted for and 2318 more than last year.

Source: weekly bulletin sent to all Co-op branches, 15.04.11.

I am innumerate. Do these numbers say anything to you?

Good 0 Evil 1

You may or may not remember a post here about an ad placed in the Liverpool Echo by the Fairways Partnership, a wholly owned subsidiary of the damned Co-operative Funeralcare. If you can’t, refresh your memory.

A good, decent, ordinary man who also happens to be a very, very good funeral director, complained about it to the ASA.

He lost.

Read the entire sorry story here. Gnash your teeth or do whatever you do.

Hat tip to the vigilant and indispensable Simon Irons for this.

Lords of all they survey

We may worry about societal death denial and a consequent tolerance of poor funerals but there’s no denying we’re not, most of us who work in the death zone, much cop at getting society to sit up and take notice of what we think. It’s rare that we come across a serious treatment of death and funerals in the media.

Who’s us? Well, the Good Funeral Guide for starters. I’m useless at playing media tart. By my defiant tone you can easily see that I am making a virtue of a shortcoming. I have no excuse. Is the Natural Death Centre making many waves at the moment? Green fuse? SAIF? SAIF likes to hide its dynamite under a bushel. What about the secular celebrant organisations, the BHA, the IoCF, the AOIC? They are admirably placed to pump out survey results about favourite poems, trends in dress codes, top tunes, that sort of and stuff. If any group needs to demonstrate the emotional value of a funeral it’s them. I’m surprised they don’t do more. And by more I mean anything.

There are some in the death biz who do manage to tickle the fancy of the media. Avalon Funeral Plans recently scored a hit with a survey (it’s always a survey) purporting to show that women reckon themselves past it at 29 while men don’t throw in the towel til they’re 58. Does anyone actually believe this nonsense?

If you’re looking to place a good funeral story, what do the journos look for? The wacky and the scandalous. You’ll never go wrong by underestimating them. Your pitch will fall on deaf ears if you aim high or even medium.

The abysmal Dying Matters recently scored a bit of a hit by proclaiming the results of a Marie Curie survey showing that most men want to die having sex. The story went on to show that actually only 18 per cent of men want to die having sex but hey, let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good headline. Do 18 per cent of men really want to die having sex? It depends how you ask the question, doesn’t it? That’s the knack of running a survey. Skew the questions so you get the answers you want.

The big undertakers don’t like to see themselves in headlines. The only stuff Dignity wants published is in the financial pages where only their shareholders can read it. Big undertakers prefer to pretend to be lots of little undertakers.

Except for the biggest, of course. Co-operative Funeralcare wants us to think it’s ethical and progressive and caring etc. By jingo, we must take off our hats to them. If anyone can dress up old news or no news as new news, it’s Funeralcare. And they’ve done it again. They’ve got a new survey out. It shows that funeral processions are forever being cut in on and sworn at by angry motorists; no one’s got any respect any more . Did you know that? How long have you known it? Here’s a typical account.

The really ingenious thing about this survey is that it’s broken down into regions and it quotes Co-op FDs from everywhere in the country, so the story has hit both the nationals and all the local papers. Fabulous free advertising all conjured up from nothing by cunning PR people. Huge success.

My anxiety is that the Co-op will soon run out of things to survey. If you can think of something for them to do next, please do leave a helpful comment.

As for the rest of us, isn’t it time we got our act together?