death and funerals

Now with streaming video

8 February 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: crematoria, death and funerals, funeral

 

Posted by Vale

The Lancashire Telegraph reported last week that it is planning to put a video streaming service into it’s Burnley Crematorium.

The chapel proved too small on over 50 occasions last year and, with the video service, people would be able to watch the ceremony on a big screen or over (a password protected) internet connection.

It’s part of a package of improvements: roadways have been upgraded and burners renewed. The money left over should run to installation of the Wesley system as well.

It’s great to hear about Council investment in these straightened times and even better to see that some of the money (only £25,000 out of an £855,000 budget – but let’s not be dogs in the manger) is going into improving the venue as a place for ceremonies and services.

It’s a pressing need all over the country. We often campaign for services to be held, well, almost anywhere other than the crem, so that people can have space and time for their service. But, if crematoria have to be used, Council’s should be encouraged to think of them as flexible spaces where people have the opportunity to create the ceremonies they need. Far too few have facilities for projecting videos or slideshows. Seating is often inflexible and, for goodness sake, there are far too many where you cannot even light a candle.

Well done Burnley – it’s a start and, maybe, you’ve thrown down a civic gauntlet for others to respond to. You can find the full article here.

My Southbank Deathfest

30 January 2012
Charles
12 Comments
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death, bereavement, death and funerals, End-of-life issues

Posted by Vale

Some personal reflections on the Southbank Deathfest this weekend:

Imagine a wire and steel footbridge over the Thames: brown water lapping, St Paul’s, pale in the wintry light, downstream. Drop down to buildings, a collection of concrete and glass halls that were modern once but which, in the way of those brave 50s buildings, now feel curiously dated.

Inside, people. Lots of them. It’s like an arty concourse in a railway station. Not everyone has come for the Deathfest – though hundreds of them have – but it seems that the lobbies of the Royal Festival Hall are a gathering place for Londoners anyway. The mill of people – talking, drinking coffee, mooching about, characterises the whole of the Deathfest. The day is made up of different events – talks, Death Cafe’s, discussions, stalls, happenings. Each of them has a charge of energy – and, depending on the venue and what’s going on, this mill of people round about sometimes makes them seem open and dynamic and, sometimes, dissipates them so that it is impossible to concentrate.
Actually there was a general sense of mild chaos everywhere. 

Decorative coffins from Ghana

Through the door and, whoop! there are old friends and GFG regulars – Sweetpea, Belinda Forbes, Charles (whose phone rings constantly so that he is no sooner there than darting off again) and Gloria Mundi.There seemed to be friends of the GFG everywhere. Our religious correspondent Richard Rawlinson, Ru Callender, Fran Hall and Rosie Inman-Cooke at a very lively NDC stand, Tony Piper and then GFG heroes like Simon Smith from Green Fuse, Shaun Powell from the Quaker initiative in the East End, helping poorer families to a good funeral. James Showers, Kathryn Edwards too. Who have I missed out? Who did I miss?

If I am honest there was a lot that was interesting, some that was moving and a little that I thought was not really for me as a practicing Celebrant. But it wasn’t aimed at the likes of us and it was hugely exciting that so many there had come for themselves, to find out and start their own explorations. At the sessions I took part in – where the question was asked – I think 80%-90% were ‘ordinary’ people.

I enjoyed an NDC hosted talk about the need to prepare for death. It made me realise that, as a celebrant, almost all of our time is spent with families after the event. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to meet people earlier? I came away with a resolution to start to make a video recording as part of my own end of life preparations. Just, you know, to make sure a few good things get said. Met an inspiring spiritual midwife too!

After, off to the Beyond Goodbye session that began with Charles’ talk and closed with the film and questions about Josh’s extraordinary funeral. Well, extraordinary because of the film and the standard and quality of what was done, but, I wanted to call out, there are lots of ‘extraordinary’ funerals now. Any family can – should – have one. But that hardly needs saying here. Josh’s mum and brother though came across as pure gold. It really is worth watching it – find the GFGs original posting here. The website for Josh and for Beyond Goodbye is here.

I hung on to my seat (this was in the smaller Queen Elizabeth Hall) because after Josh came John Snow and the assisted dying discussion and lot’s of people wanted to see that.

At the end of a lively discussion I’m with Helena Kennedy on this: let’s, for goodness sake, have a proper commission about end of life issues. We’re mired in piffling debates in the Leveson enquiry and the doubtful (but surely unsurprising) morals of newspapers when there is an issue here that is both urgent and important and where popular feeling is pulling ahead of the current legal position. Society as a whole would benefit from open, reasoned, public enquiry and debate. I feel a GFG campaign coming on…

There were lots of things in the discussion that did make me think – especially the realisation that assisted dying has to be considered in the whole context of how we, as a society, treat vulnerable people. The whole debate would change – wouldn’t it? – if we could be confident that we treated the elderly and disabled generously, with respect and true consideration?

So much that I didn’t see. Paul Gambaccini’s session on Friday about Desert Island Death Discs, the poetry, Paul Morley and Sandi Toksvig – but I still came away with a sense that, maybe, in places like the pages of this blog, in the work of pioneers like the NDC and the Quaker Social Action project, and most of all in the energy and interest of the people who came and took part, we really might be able to bring death our lives. One thing is certain – we need more festivals like this one.

Transparent funeral pricing (Disinfectant part 2)

8 December 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: death and funerals, funeral cost

 

How can you give people clear simple information about the likely cost of the funeral they are organising?

It sounds easy but in practice it can be the hardest thing in the world. How do you listen, share, sympathise and support people in all sorts of distress? How do you help them start to shape the funeral they need to create and, at the same time, in all the emotion of the meeting, keep them up to date on the cost consequences of the choices they are making?

Vulnerable and bewildered, people are rarely at their best as consumers. It is a situation ripe with opportunities – for the outstanding and exceptional support the best provide and for the uneccessary additions and charges that the less scrupulous slip in.

But there is an alternative. A couple of weeks ago we featured a TV advertisement for Basic funerals of Canada. You can find it here if you’d like a refresher.

Basic Funerals, as part of it’s internet based approach, also has a page that allows you to calculate the cost of the funeral you are buying. The page is here. This is a screenshot.

We believe that this is emerging best practice. Without pressure it gives people the chance to look at costs and make choices. It is wonderfully transparent.

There are UK funeral directors who are also leading the way. Although they are not internet based service providers they are using their websites to help their customers do their research before they walk through the door.

Have a look at these sites for an idea of what can be done:

Sullivan and Sons of Dover: http://www.sullivanandson.co.uk/Costs.html

Kingfisher Funerals of St. Neots: http://kingfisherfunerals.co.uk/estimate.html

Powell and Family of Droitwich: http://www.powellandfamily.co.uk/funeral-cost-calculator

Peace Funerals of Sheffield: http://www.peacefunerals.co.uk/Lowcost.html

Richard Ward Funeral Services of Enderby: http://www.rwfs.co.uk/prices_comparisons.php

Of course, once you start this internet pricing, it allows you to draw comparisons with your competitors. Richard Ward does it. 

These can’t be the only ones. In our mission to celebrate the best in the funeral industry, who else is out there using their website to provide real information and real choice? Or using other methods we’re not aware of? Let us know – we’d love to write their names large.

Fair dos for Henry Scott Holland

1 December 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: death and funerals, Religious funerals, Requiem Mass

Posted by our religious correspondent Richard Rawlinson

In this initial blog, Fr Tim Finnigan explains his irritation with this famous reflection on death by the Anglican Canon Henry Scott-Holland (1847-1918):

 “Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

 Fr Tim retorts: “Death is not ‘nothing’, it is a big thing and can be devastating. Something has happened and it can seem that everything has changed…. Yes, we should keep our happy memories and cherish them but we do not need to “force” solemnity and sorrow – they come quite naturally”.

 He adds: “As Catholics we have the best possible comfort in our grief. At every Mass we pray for all the faithful departed. At Mass… the whole Church is gathered together, including all of the Holy Souls in purgatory. We are not helpless because our prayers actually help our loved ones who have died… The popular transformation of the funeral into “a celebration of the life of …” distracts people from the opportunity to do the one thing that really helps those who have died: to pray for them”.

 All good stuff, in my book, but Fr Tim follows his first blog with this clarification after correspondents pointed out he has been unfair to Canon Scott-Holland.

 The fact is that, while at St Paul’s Cathedral, Scott-Holland delivered a sermon in May 1910 following the death of King Edward VII titled Death the King of Terrors, in which he explores the natural but seemingly contradictory responses to death: the fear of the unexplained and the belief in continuity. It is from his discussion of the latter that his best-known writing, ‘Death is nothing at all’, is drawn.

Fr Tim concludes: “The poor man has been badly served by having the “Death is nothing at all …” section quoted so widely without the context of his argument and contrast”.

Plumbline and square – the Masonic funeral

21 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: alternative funerals, Attitudes to death, death and funerals, funeral customs

Some Masons call their funeral ceremony an Orientation, but these days the service itself can be like a secular ceremony – apart, of course, from the Masonic ‘paraphernalia’.

Masons are a great deal more open about their ceremonies than they used to be, but much of what they do still seems esoteric and mysterious. Borderzine magazine has an interesting article about 93 year old Norman Miller, resident of El Paso, who bebelieves that since he began in 1964 he has carried out well over a thousand Masonic funerals.

In the interview he explains the process:

“We get word from the families of the the funeral director that the family desires to have a gravesite [sic] service. We don our Masonic aprons, our paraphernalia…some of the lodge officers have their jewels on. We form the group and I do the Masonic orientation.

The full article can be found here.

If you are interested Masons in Maryland have provided a video reenactment of the Masonic funeral:

Of course this is America. Is anyone prepared to say whether it is different here in Britain?

You have 30 seconds – impress me

16 November 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Attitudes to death, death and funerals, Marketing

You’re the first internet based funeral service. You want to make sure people know you are different and you have 30 seconds of TV time to get your message across. How would you do it? Yesterday we presented the advertisement that Basic Funerals in Canada created. You can see it here.  We thought it was worth repeating because it highlights the whole question of how advertising works and what sort of message you might want to get across.

Basic Funerals CEO Eric Vandermeersch is clear that, as he launches his new service, he wants to differentiate it from traditional businesses. Cost of course (and it’s interessting that home visits are seen as exceptional), but it’s also about style and approach:

“When you talk about funerals, obviously it’s a sad time, but there’s also a great element of celebration. We’re not trying to make light of the serious side, what we’re really doing is showing people that we’ve changed the model—it doesn’t have to be expensive anymore,” he said. “There is a lighter side of the industry and we’re not afraid to show it because it is the most important side of the typical funeral.”

He added that commercials he’s seen for other funeral homes lack in the entertainment department. “Usually, it’s the owner of the funeral home standing by a fireplace talking about how his family has been in the industry for six generations and it’s pretty boring to say the least.”

You may not do a TV ad yet, but thinking of your website and paperbased advertising are you the man on the right or the lady on the left? And who has got it right?

Fair comment?

25 October 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: death and funerals, funeral, funeral cost

Posted by Vale

Here’s a story from last Friday’s This Is Local London website. 

Teddington campaign group launches petition against spiralling funeral costs

 Campaigners have encouraged people in the borough to sign a petition against rocketing funeral prices.

The campaign group Fair Funerals aims to raise awareness about the sharp increase in prices in the past few years and the treatment people have received from some companies.

The Teddington-based group consists of five members who have all had their own negative experiences with funeral firms.

The group has been promoting its campaign in Twickenham, Richmond and Kingston and plans to finish in six weeks.

Founder David Ambaye said: “We want people to be aware that there are two big players in the industry who are controlling almost all of it. It’s a bit like having the industry making the rules for itself. From talking to people on the streets, the main feedback is that they are not aware this is the case.”

Mr Ambaye and his sister Lina Ambaye were inspired to create the group after an experience with a funeral firm following their father’s death.

He said: “When our father died, we ended up dealing with three different companies who we thought were three different firms, but they were all owned by the same one.

“The body ended up being treated badly and we couldn’t sue as the company that had dealt with it was sub-contracted and you cannot sue a sub-contracted company.”

Prices in the industry have increased by 42 per cent in the last five years with a 22 per cent increase in 2009 alone.

The group was aiming to get 1,000 signatures so it can take the petition to Parliament.

For more information, visit fairfunerals.org.

The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral

3 October 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: alternative funerals, death and funerals, DIY funeral, funeral, funeral customs

Posted by Vale

“So a few weeks before Bob died, my 15-year-old son, Harper, and I made a coffin out of plywood and deck screws from Home Depot…We routed rabbet joints for a tight construction.
“I guess we wouldn’t want him falling out the bottom,” Harper said.
“That would reflect poorly on our carpentry skills,” I agreed.

Max Alexander has written a fascinating account of two contrasting funerals. One, a home funeral, for his father in law (Bob, on the left in the photograph) the second, more conventional, for his father (Jim, on the right in the photograph). His description of what happened is warm, intimate and very moving:

“When Bob died, on a cold evening in late November, Sarah, her sister Holly and I gently washed his body with warm water and lavender oil as it lay on the portable hospital bed in the living room. (Anointing a body with aromatic oils, which moisten the skin and provide a calming atmosphere for the living, is an ancient tradition.) I had been to plenty of funerals and seen many a body in the casket, but this was the first time I was expected to handle one. I wasn’t eager to do so, but after a few minutes it seemed like second nature. His skin remained warm for a long time—maybe an hour—then gradually cooled and turned pale as the blood settled. While Holly and I washed his feet, Sarah trimmed his fingernails. (No, they don’t keep growing after death, but they were too long.) We had to tie his jaw shut with a bandanna for several hours until rigor mortis set in, so his mouth would not be frozen open; the bandanna made him look like he had a toothache.

We worked quietly and deliberately, partly because it was all new to us but mainly out of a deep sense of purpose. Our work offered the chance to reflect on the fact that he was really gone. It wasn’t Bob, just his body.

Bob’s widow, Annabelle, a stoic New Englander, stayed in the kitchen during most of these preparations, but at some point she came in and held his hands. Soon she was comfortable lifting his arms and marveling at the soft stillness of her husband’s flesh. “Forty-four years with this man,” she said quietly.”

The full account of both funerals can be found here.

Max took inspiration from an organisation called Crossings, that acts as a home funeral and green burial resource center. Crossing, they say, exists “to foster the integration of dying and after-death care back into our family and community life.” Their site can be found here.

A good funeral: part 1

22 September 2011
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, burial, ceremony, death and funerals, DIY funeral, funeral

Posted by Sweetpea

In the light of our recent discussions about the merits of secular, civil and religious funerals, one interesting thread started to appear.  Namely, what should a funeral not fail to include?  Can a funeral ever really be meaningful to anyone?  Does any funeral do the things that people need it to do? Well, for the sake of clarity, I’d like to leave the actual ritual contents of a civil or secular funeral for another day.  For the moment, I think we should go one step further back, to examine how the foundations of a good funeral rite are laid. Cutting through all the arguments about the contents of a funeral, be it of whatever shade, I think the key to the success of a funeral rite (and I have no doubt that a successful funeral is possible) is one overarching thing:  Relevance.

And the mechanism for allowing the door to open to Relevance?  Well, that begins with well informed people who instinctively know what will be right for them, and just as importantly know where to find it.  Failing that, a knowledgeable and empathetic funeral director who can guide those people towards what is the best path for them.  And failing that, an experienced and skilful celebrant/member of the clergy/friend to offer advice and support to bring them to where they need to be.

The notion of Relevance should permeate the entire proceedings from beginning to end – from funeral preparations to the enactment of the rite itself.  It doesn’t happen by accident, and needs empathetic, practical and experienced people working together to make it happen.  As has been so wonderfully written elsewhere by Jonathan: ‘if you just listen to a family it brings it all down out of the whirlwind in the sky and settles it more easily on the ground.  Stop.  Do nothing.  Tell me how he died; how do you feel about his death; where does that leave you now; let’s look after him gently while we all decide what to do and, far more importantly, why we’re doing it and what we hope it will achieve. Does that involve some choices?  Okay, let’s deal with them in our own good time, it’s not the choices that matter anyway.’    

This simple, intuitive and effective process leads eventually to arrangements which, as Tom Lynch states ‘get the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be’.  This might be a whole day spent on a hillside, with a grave dug and filled by friends on their own land, singing around a campfire until the early hours, it might be a requiem mass, it might be a twenty minute ceremony at a crematorium, followed by a celebratory knees-up at a favourite pub, it might be a C of E service followed by ham salad and scones in the village hall.  If it’s relevant to these people, then that’s the nearest we are going to get to achieving those aims.

But let’s be under no illusions.  Real emotional pain and damage is caused to grievers when a rite has no relevance to them – it’s traumatic and stays with them until their own dying day.  We are perhaps more familiar with stories of religious rites leaving people disorientated and even more bereft because of a mis-matching of their needs and its expression.  But this can be just as true for civil or secular funerals, something which I have observed when, say, a religiously inclined adult child has been painfully overruled or excluded from religious or spiritual expression by a surviving parent.  Which leads us to part 2 – what should or shouldn’t be included in a successful funeral rite?