The word ‘progressive’ is overused and overrated
Posted by Richard Rawlinson A follow-up to Charles Cowling’s thirst-quenching piece about the need for independent undertakers to blow their trumpets louder to steal market share from the corporate chains, here. It’s my hunch that some indies should stop perceiving themselves as niche, fringe and progressive, and instead project themselves as mainstream. Why? There’s an abundance […]
No place like home
Now that most funeral directors have a website it’s a good time to review the way they receive visitors on their home page. It’s a darn difficult one to get right and no mistaking. After all, no one wants to buy a funeral. So how do you allay fears, define and differentiate yourself, inspire warmth […]
If small is beautiful, look lovely
There isn’t a single successful business in Britain that doesn’t seek to grow through mergers and acquisitions. Consolidation, they call it. It’s a factor of competitive capitalism. Or greed, if you prefer. Whichever. The bigger you are, the more efficiently you can trade. Efficiency enables you to bring your prices down, blow off competitors — […]
Ask not what you can do for the bereaved; ask what the bereaved can do for themselves
SCENE – A village wedding. Church bells. Assorted villagers have assembled at the lych gate waiting for a glimpse of the bride. They are joined by a TOURIST who happily happens to speak perfect English. VILLAGER: There she is! Just coming round the corner now. Ooh, it’s a Rolls! TOURIST: Who’s that walking in front […]
Remains to be seen
So, a bad week, then, for dead heads of state. Hugo Chavez can’t after all be embalmed ‘like Lenin’. By the time the experts got there it was too late for the disembowelling and the deep marinade which would have made him, in death, the centre of a cult and an object of pilgrimage – […]
Another no-frills funeral service
There was a big splash in Saturday’s Daily Mail about a budget funeral newcomer to Funeralworld, Cremdirect. Set up in June 2012, Cremdirect has already performed 70 funerals at an all-in fixed price of £1750 and serves Manchester, Buxton and Macclesfield and environs. We called up the founder, Mark Roebuck, and put to him the […]
Seeing is disbelieving
An Indiana funeral director said he was fired for refusing to use random body parts to create fake cadavers for three his funeral home lost. David Eckert said his employer, Alpha Funeral Service of Indianapolis, routinely loaned cadavers to Indiana University’s School of Medicine, Courthouse News Service reported. When three cadavers went missing, Eckert said […]
You only get one chance to get it wrong
A few years ago I worked with a very nice woman on her second husband’s funeral. Naturally, we talked about all sorts of things. She recalled the day of her first husband’s funeral. The hearse was due to go direct to the crematorium and she left home in good time so as to be sure […]
Chaos theory
“A contemporary theologian has described mercy as “entering into the chaos of another.” [Source] Is there a better definition of what those who work for the bereaved do?
I never met a raven I didn’t like
Dr. Berndt Heinrich, 72, emeritus biology professor at the University of Vermont, spends much of his time in a cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water, studying animals. His latest book, “Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death”, is about how animals die and how they recycle each other: It’s not so much about […]
