Cool heads, warm hearts
Anticipation is building in advance of ITV’s upcoming exposé of the funeral industry. We don’t have to tell you that the industry’s pulse is beating fast in anticipation of ITV’s upcoming shocker. Pre-emptive fury and sulphurous denunciation have already broken out in the comments columns of our blog, threatening to subvert the civility and coolness […]
A literary undertaking
“From that moment my mind was made up – I wanted to be an undertaker. That was that and all there was about it.” “A LIFE IN DEATH – Memoirs Of A Cotswold Funeral Director” by James Baker “A Life In Death” takes the reader into the largely hidden world of death and funerals, as set […]
A very damp day, some part Foggy, not very Cold
A guest post by Mike Rendell We are very grateful to Mike Rendell for so generously sharing with us this fascinating account of an eighteenth century funeral. Mike Rendell is a published author who specializes in 18th Century history. He blogs on all aspects of life in the Georgian era here. Mike is an especially fortunate family historian. […]
So silly to take sides
A few weeks ago I bumped into a funeral director I like and admire. He was bursting with something he had just learned and needed to share: Ken West is not bonkers, official. He’d met Ken at some do or other and had revelled in a feast of reason and a flow of soul with the great […]
J’accuse!
It was always going to be risky, this business of recommending funeral directors. We set out purposefully, hoping for the best with the best possible intentions, knowing that if you’re going to make anything in this world, you’re going to make mistakes. We’re optimists. It seemed, and still seems, to be a good thing to do, to […]
Welcome, Funeral Advisor!
Funeral Advisor is a project of the Natural Death Centre, created by Jon Underwood of Death Café fame. The aim is beautifully simple: to offer to the bereaved the opportunity to review their funeral director in the same way that travellers can review their hotel at TripAdvisor. Check it out here.
Council changes ashes policy after bereaved family complains
From today’s Oxford Mail: A TOWN council has been forced to change its policy on interring ashes after a bereaved family took the authority to task. Christopher Harris objected to Woodstock Town Council’s rule that said people must employ the services of a funeral director to oversee the interment of a loved one’s ashes. Mr […]
Busybody nonsense
Christopher Harris Some time this evening Christopher Harris will deliver the following speech to Woodstock Town Council, calling upon it to strike out its requirement that the interment of his father’s ashes be superintended by a funeral director. Here’s another example of someone tenaciously pursuing the rights of the bereaved with an important test case. […]
FD Darren goes the extra mile
Darren Barker is the manager of Anglia Co-operative*, St Neots. When the family of a little girl who died last year found out how much it would cost to have the Gruffalo painted on her coffin, Darren offered to do it for them. He gave up his days off to do it. Says local celebrant […]
Open letter to George Tinning, Managing Director, Co-operative Funeralcare #4
Dear Mr Tinning, Woo, sorry! Caught you unawares? Thought we’d lost interest? No, we’re not going away. And not just us. There’s the GMB union, too. As you know, they’re disappointed in you for derecognising them in 2007. You can read their own campaign page here. How on earth can a co-operative banish a trade […]
