What is a funeral for?
A survey of this blog’s favourite obits’ page in the Times Colonist in Victoria, on the west coast of Canada, yields features of interest. 12 deaths are recorded this week. So far as I can see, there’s not a single funeral among them. The breakdown reveals: 3 celebrations of life; 2 memorial services; 3 no […]
Nick Gandon on funeral costs
Nick Gandon operates the UK’s first and, so far as I know, only dedicated direct cremation service. Here is the comment he left on this post from a few days ago, and which you might have missed. I first wrote about Nick here. When I started out in the world of funerals, they were just […]
Funeralcare screwupdate, with added overpricing
It is with a heavy-hearted sense of duty that I record this beastly and deplorable allegation against Co-operative Funeralcare. You can find the full version at MoneySavingExpert.com. Don’t use co-operative funeralcare directors they are disgusting …They failed to complete the legal documents correctly they put the wrong funeral date on the documents … We were […]
Yes, we can
A few weeks back I lazily asked whether a private entrepreneur could open a crematorium in this country. I say lazily because I hoped someone would know the answer and spare me research time. I supposed that only local authorities can get permission from the Secretary of State to build a crem. I was wrong, […]
No Service By Request
I am extremely grateful to Gordon Thurston for this thorough and thoughtful analysis of the growing rejection in parts of both the US and Canada of the traditional practice of holding a funeral with the body of the person who has died present, and the preference, instead, either for a memorial service or for no […]
Exit strategy
It seems unthinkable that the practice of direct cremation, direct burial – the rapid and unceremonious disposal of the dead – could land on our shores. It’s been preying on my mind. Now I’m not so sure. Here’s a view from Rabbi Mark S Glickman writing in the Seattle Times about what he calls the […]
No service by request
One more go at Canada’s Times Colonist. A rich seam, this. There are 13 obits in the paper. Of those, 3 opt for no service; 3 opt for a celebration of life (I’m not sure exactly what that is, but at least one of them’s not a funeral); 4 opt for a memorial service; and […]
The great reveller
A Christian funeral proclaims the fierce, happy truth that ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’. As Christians see it, Sin corrupts and depraves, Death annihilates and nullifies. Both are the spawn of Satan, who is Evil, the mortal (lit) enemy of God who is Good and, the theology goes, the victor in the end. It’s […]
Gift or garbage?
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? […]
Short change
A series of shorts, today. Each is probably worth a post in its own right, but if I don’t get them off my chest now tomorrow will come and they will lie unremembered. First, an interesting editorial in this month’s Funeral Service Journal, the UK’s Dismal Trade mag. It observes that “the spirit of entrepreneurship […]
