coffins

“It’s the people who aren’t comfortable with their life that can’t talk about their death.”

29 June 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: coffins

 

I had an email this morning from Chuck Lakin. The name rang a faint and distant bell. I unleashed Google, who soon ran him to ground.

Chuck makes coffins. Beautiful, simple coffins. Here’s a story about one of them:

Last September, Barbara Baker learned that breast cancer had spread to her bones and she had six months to live. Lakin had already made a coffin for Baker’s cat. The choice to have her own made came naturally. He delivered it a week before Christmas, when Baker had a friend, Carla, staying over.

“Carla comes home at 4:30, and my mom says, ‘Chuck’s coming and he’s bringing my casket today,’” Fenlason said. Carla pulled her aside and warned her: “I think there’s something wrong with your mother’s mind.”

Fenlason said her mom was touched that someone would make something so beautiful for her. After she died on Jan. 18, Fenlason and her husband, Glenn, assembled the coffin themselves at the funeral home. Family signed the inside of the plain pine lid. Guests were encouraged to sign on top. They wrote things like, “You’ll always be the queen of green fried tomatoes.”

“It was another healing thing for us,” Fenlason said. “Morbid didn’t even come into the picture at all. I hope 1,000 other people want to do this.”

Instructions for Chuck’s make-it-yourself quick coffin here.

More about Chuck here

And here

Chuck’s other wood designs here

Title quote: Chuck.

Putting something back

15 June 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: coffins

What’s in a coffin?

Okay, a dead person. What I meant, as you perfectly well know, is what is important in the eyes of the people who choose them? There’s a huge range, now – it has multiplied over the last ten years – catering for a very wide range of needs and tastes. Does any other country offer such a range?

The cheapest could never have got any cheaper; even cardboard hasn’t managed to do that. Cardboard is a peculiarly British deathstyle understatement, especially when bought by someone who could afford much better.

Eye-friendly coffins sell well. Anything without a repellent and chilling gleam. A Sunset coffin is especially good at not gleaming, and manages to be tactile as well; your fingers make a beeline for it. Lovely. Printing technology has made possible the explosion (can I say that?) of picture coffins, and also the facility to make them very personal. They’re lovely, too.

And then there’re the eco-coffins – the ones made from natural materials. Banana leaf, water hyacinth, bamboo, etc, all of them imported, so not as eco-friendly as all that, but the price is pretty good and they look nice enough in their faintly foreign way.

Those who want an indigenous look go for willow. But most willow coffins aren’t made from British willow, and it shows if you knows. The weave is loose, the willow shiny, either because it is sprayed with varnish or with a mixture of turps and linseed to stop it going mouldy on the way over. Compared with a willow coffin made in the Somerset Levels, these coffins are much cheaper and very much less than cheerful. But I would guess that a lot of consumers don’t know where they come from or what the difference is. They probably suppose they are being buried in something relatively local, but they’re not.

People buy a willow coffin often because they want to put something back. And while I wouldn’t quibble for a minute with the quality of the coffins made by Somerset Willow or Musgrove Willow, there’s another willow coffin out there which enables the buyer to put something back in two ways.

The WinterWillow is made in Cambridge from English willow. It’s a class act – a lovely piece making. It’s a good price at £625 direct to the public, fully lined and kitted out. And all profits are ploughed back not into the boss’s new car but into the very deserving Wintercomfort charity, which supports the homeless and teaches them skills for work.

Right stuff, direct sale, good price, saintly people. I can’t think of another coffin with as many selling points. It’s the kind of purchase that would make anyone feel proud to write the cheque.

All hands to the pulp

6 June 2011
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: coffins

I wonder what you will think of this new coffin from Denmark. It is pressed from recycled paper pulp. Here are the key features, helpfully translated by Mr Google.

1. The coffin is made of molded pulp

2. The coffin weight is approx. 6kg against wooden coffins from approx. 20kg and over

3. The coffin is environmentally friendly and biodegradable. Made from long fiber recycled paper, pulp

4. The coffin is treated with environmentally friendly material that is water resistant and can tolerate water in a prescribed time

5. The coffin is treated with environmentally friendly material which makes it compliant to the ignition of cremation

6. The coffin has built-in handle in the side of the coffin, the opposite usually externally on the coffin

7. Closing the coffin has been made without screws

8. The coffin shape is both rectangular (as in Nordic and other countries) and trapezoidal (as in several other countries)

9. The coffin bottom is standard with normal apron (as a bottom frame) but has a special angled seam at all four corners for inserting the feet. This has been designed for countries that use feet on coffins

10. The coffin interior bottom has a fold in the middle, so that Muslims can be laying on the side according to their burial rules

11. The coffin comes in any colouring a customer may wish, even a colour of coffin bottom, another for the lid, a third colour of the urn base and a fourth colour for urn lid

12. The coffin ornaments, such as a cross to a Christian person, an anchor for a sailor, hammer and sickle to a communist and many others decorations are supplied separately for mounting by the customer wishes

13. The coffin belonging urn comes with the coffin and is made of the same material as the coffin. Colour can be chosen different from the coffin as mentioned above.

14.Received Awards

The product received 40,000 from “Growth through counseling”

The product received 100,000 from ”The Research and Innovation Agency”

The product received 10,000 and Environment Prize from “Denmark’s best idea on Fyn in 2010”

More info and pics here and here.

Seeing doppel

9 May 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Art and death, coffins, funeral reformers, natural burial

The toiling wretches at GFG Central were arrested in their labours the other day by the discovery of a doppelganger in New Zealand — Good Funeral Guide NZ. They uttered a heartwarming if parched cheer as the overseers, puzzled by the commotion, moved in with their whips.

GFG NZ is the brainchild of Tamara Linnhof, who also works with her husband Andrew making eco-coffins of more than ordinary design excellence. You can see them pictured here.

Tamara’s background is in consumer protection and she is keen to influence government policy-making in the area of the still-young natural burial movement in New Zealand. She is keen to talk to all with an interest in natural burial anywhere, so do contact her if this is an important area for you.

We wish Tamara and Andrew every possible success.

GFG NZ here.

TenderRest here.

Coffin price war on eBay?

14 March 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: coffins

Coffins have been coming up for sale on eBay from time to time for a few years, but not in a dependable flow. That may be about to change. Carl Marlow’s Coffin Company has a nice selection at keen prices and I guess he’s in there to stay. You can always tell which is a Carl coffin. He likes to photograph his standing up.

And, I see, my old friend Granlite of Clickfunerals is back with a couple of nice ones plus a good selection of ashes urns. I last corresponded with Granlite over a year ago. He/she has been a bit on and off but is back, I hope, to stay.

Carl’s prices look pretty good to me. The opening bid on his two wicker ones is £195, the Buy It Now price £275. He has a trad oak veneer, lined, with an opening bid of £175 and a Buy It Now price of £235. There’s an additional delivery charge in all cases of £30.

But Clickfunerals are offering a lined oak veneer at an even keener price: £199 + free delivery.  The product description leaves a heck of a lot to be desired and does not necessarily inspire confidence.

Undercut that, though, and you’re in business.

Coffin Co here. Clickfunerals here.

Shouldering responsibility

10 March 2011
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: ceremony, coffins, funeral customs

You will have your own feelings about a coffin being carried on shoulders of undertakers.

It unsettles me. I don’t like to see those big men in black macs in such a close relationship with the body. It wouldn’t do for any of mine. I don’t want men I’ve never met carrying anyone of mine.

That’s a point of view, and points of view are not prescriptive. Lots of people like to see a coffin shouldered in this traditional and dignified way, and I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong. But I would be perfectly happy to expand on my disinclination.

There is obvious symbolism in raising high the dead person. But to rest the weight on one shoulder? Bio-mechanically speaking, it’s not a sensible thing to do. Spines hate it. It would make much better physical sense for bearers to carry the coffin on the tops of their heads in much the same way African women carry water pots. But that would look wrong, would it?

Sure, you don’t need to be a skilled bearer to hang on safely to a shouldered coffin. Rookies do it all the time, clinging in some terror to the jacket on the other side. But whoever does it, it doesn’t look comfortable. It looks hesitant and a bit wobbly, especially going up steps or through doors. Bio-mechanics are against it. It’s against nature. It’s also against women. How often do you see a woman shouldering a coffin?

I like to see family members and friends carry a coffin – if there are enough of them. I’d go so far as to say that it’s a duty owed. In life, in death, in the words of the U2 song, ‘We get to / Carry each other.’ Carrying the coffin is something people who don’t deliver eulogies, read poems, arrange flowers, can do. A good funeral is one where people shoulder responsibility and do as much of what needs to be done as they can. Taking the weight is in itself symbolic.

But a coffin needs to be carried at arm’s length. That way, everyone can join in. Women, children, the old. Four or five down each side, one at the head and another at the foot, some perhaps only making physical contact. In relays, if necessary, as they still do in parts of Scotland.

It creates a much better mood. In my opinion.

What to pack for hospital

13 January 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: coffins, Pauper funerals, shroud

There’s an engaging little story in January’s Funeral Service Journal describing the custom at Norwich Great Hospital, back in the medieval day, requiring those who had fallen into indigent, aged decrepitude (50+ female BBC presenters, for example) to bring with them, as their entry pass, a coffin. Not so different perhaps from today when you would be well advised to do just that were you unfortunate enough to be borne to Stafford Hospital, the sort of place that undertakers toast at Christmas parties.

But it turned out that the doddering ancients in Norwich Great Hospital thoughtlessly used their coffins as cupboards. Some of these coffins, when the time came to use them for their proper purpose, were found to be worn out. So the hospital changed the custom. Instead of a coffin, prospective entrants were required to bring £1 to pay for a shroud when their time came.

Coffins on the shopping channel

12 January 2011
Charles
11 Comments
Categories: coffins, Formality vs informality, funeral cost, funeral reformers

Newcastle undertaker Carl Marlow has, by his own accounts, been quiet for the last five years — busy building his business. For his fellow undertakers this was too good to last. Carl has never been one to take the view that the best way to achieve change is to work within the industry, and this is only one of a thousand reasons why the industry hates him. He’s a free radical and a bloody good servant to those he looks after. When it comes to offering choice he goes the extra mile: “You don’t have to have a hearse, you know. That’s two hundred quid you can put behind the bar afterwards.” I love Carl.

Now he wants to offer advice to cost-conscious, self-reliant funeral consumers and sell them coffins at affordable prices.  He says, in that disarming, conciliatory way he has: “I think funerals are a con. Too many people in an emotional frame of mind are paying too much money and there’s no need for it to be so expensive. It feels like a bit of a closed shop, and I’m trying to open it up a bit. We’re hopefully going to be putting coffins on shopping channels like QVC. We’re putting an application in and seeing if they come back to us. We’re not trying to be controversial. We’re trying to make coffins more of an everyday purchase and demystify the whole funeral process.”

Few people have done as much for the cause of death in the community as Carl. He likes to photograph his coffins, not in hushed and dignified surroundings, but in everyday contexts. He tells me he has raised eyebrows and smiles recently, carting coffins around the city, posing them against graffiti-covered walls and the like.

Having spent a happy half- hour on the phone to Carl I just had to tell you about it. The name of the new business is the Coffin Company. It launches any day. I’ll be sure to tell you when it does.

Cheap boos

13 September 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, coffins, Dignity, family funeral directors, funeral directors, funeral trends

Real ale made by boutique brewers has at last begun to drive down sales of lager for the first time in half a century reports yesterday’s Observer.

Intriguingly, the Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) reports that while its 420 members enjoyed a combined sales rise of 4 per cent last year, its smallest and boutique-iest brewers saw sales rise by 8.5 per cent. Small is good, smallest is best.

More good news. More young people are supping the Right Stuff. Of 25-34 year olds, the number of those who have tasted real ale rose from 28 per cent to 50 per cent in the period 2008-10. What’s more, the number of women rose from 16 per cent to 32 per cent in the same period.

Says Julian Grocock of Siba: “A lot of our members are professional brewers who have worked for the big brewers and have now set up their own business. They are brewing all sorts of beers … There’s now a huge variety out there.”

You see where I’m coming from?

If the little guys can turn the tables on the big beasts in the brewing trade it gives us hope that the same thing can happen in the funeral industry. (I understand that for the word ‘beasts’ you might like to substitute something stronger.)

Speaking of whom, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has named the Co-op Funeralcare coffin factory in Scotland as one of that country’s 99 dirtiest polluters. The story comes from the Sunday Herald, which describes the Co-op as “ethically conscious.” Hmph.

Is it curtains for cardboard?

2 September 2010
Charles
12 Comments
Categories: coffins, National Association of Funeral Directors, natural burial

There are lies, damned lies and carbon footprint stats. Their most impressive feature is that they are so often counter-intuitive. Here’s an example:

Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand…recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption…  [T]hey found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Read on here.

The same sort of statistical sleight of hand can demonstrate that a coffin shipped from the other side of the world racks up the equivalent of no more than half a dozen road miles. Suffering as I do from severe and incurable innumeracy, I am ill-equipped to do more than shrug in puzzlement. I’m hoping you’re rather better than me at this sort of thing, because I’d like to ask your opinion about the following.

The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) has published an article in its journal, the Funeral Director, titled Dispelling the myth about cardboard coffins. It makes this assertion: “Corrugated cardboard coffins may appear to present a green image and are perceived as a low cost alternative to traditional coffins, but in fact they’re not as cheap and environmentally friendly as they look, particularly if they’re made from recycled cardboard.” This dismayed me because I know Will Hunnybel at Greenfield Creations and I’ve always happily reckoned him to be a pretty straight, green sort of guy. The article goes on: “… the overall cost to the planet may be more than that of a solid pine or chipboard veneer coffin.”

That rang an alarm bell. Why would the NAFD’s environmental consultant, Martin Smith, stand a pine coffin alongside a chipboard coffin? Even a dunderhead like my good self knows that a pine coffin is carbon neutral. But what do I know?

Reading further, I find that cardboard coffin makers go about their business is a most beastly, even eco-vindictive, way: “Pine trees, from sustainable forests, provide the basic raw material … the branches are stripped off … torn into small chips and cooked in a solution of”, to cut a long story short, a lot of nasty-sounding chemicals including “sulphates, sulphides and” (can you guess?) “sulphites.”

Bastards, I hear you mutter; all that stripping and tearing and cooking, and sulphates and sulphides and sulphites. Quite so. How unlike the home life of our own, dear chipboard makers. We learn that they do it by much gentler means, “by pressing timber fibres together with glue and heat” employing “fewer chemicals, glues, energy and water than cardboard coffins.”

Friends, am I to remove Will Hunnybel and all other cardboard coffinmakers from my Christmas card list? Was I wrong to suppose that chipboard contains traces of formaldehyde? Is the bottom about to fall out of cardboard coffins?

Do leave a comment, please. This is important.