What I Want From A Funeral Director
Posted by Gloria Mundi Another opinionated passage from a sometimes-frustrated celebrant. Please remember – it’s only my opinion! So with apologies to some wonderful funeral directors I know, here goes. I am not anti-funeral directors. I think their job is frequently stressful and demanding in ways the rest of us may hardly understand. Also, some […]
Can undertaking ever be a respectable commercial activity?
Posted by Charles Commentators on Mr Maiden’s letter to the Funeral Service Journal (here) deploring some coffin manufacturers’ willingness to sell their boxes direct to the public did not find in favour of Mr Maiden’s practice of burying some of his service charge in an excessively marked-up coffin. The latest score is 26-0. James Leedam […]
Shame
UPDATE On July 21 2011 Sonny, the stillborn baby of Sandra and Sai Lao, was cremated. The Laos were distraught when they were told. They denied having signed the cremation forms. Co-op funeral director David Durden said no, they had, claiming they were so distressed they must have forgotten. Durden was taken to court, found […]
Is this the industry’s High Noon moment?
The funeral industry is in a bad place. Public reaction to last week’s Which? report revealed few friends. It also showed it to be no good at defending itself. Things are going to get worse. Time is running out. At the GFG we’ve lost count of the number of calls we’ve taken in the last […]
Publishing event of the year!
The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, […]
Trading Standards ambush Milton Keynes undertakers
Here’s an interesting article from the Milton Keynes Citizen which describes a Trading Standards department that sets the pace for some of the rest: Milton Keynes Council Trading Standards has recently undertaken a project looking at the funeral directors industry to determine if businesses are compliant with consumer protection legislation. The trade within Milton Keynes […]
Inspired omission
The new Bond film features a military repatriation Wootton Bassett-style. Seems there’s been a boob. According to the Telegraph: Roger Smith, a funeral director brought in to take part in the scenes, tells Mandrake that he was shocked by the film makers’ ignorance. “The annoying thing was that the directors didn’t seem aware of the […]
There were six of us in the house. Seconds ago there had been seven.
Fran and her Mum on her 70th Fran Hall, a funeral industry practitioner of many years’ standing, much admired by the GFG, now works as a consultant. She is also the newly-appointed Chair of the Natural Death Centre. For years Fran successfully managed to balance detatchment and empathy in her professional life, so how did it feel when […]
Which? hunt
Okay then, what’s so what’s our line on the latest media coverage of Funeralworld sparked by the ‘consumer advocacy organisation’ Which? deploring mendacious, predatory funeral directors? All the age-old charges are levelled against funeral directors: opaque pricing, upselling, and talking people into services they don’t need like embalming. Out of 20 funeral directors mystery shopped […]
Best of Fife
You remember Neil Brunton? He’s the singer-songwriting-undertaker you voted for a while back in that Radio 2 competition. Let us refresh your memory here. Well, partly thanks to you he’s made it to the final. Here’s the story (abridged): Neil Brunton has reached the final stages of a national songwriting competition called Oldie Composers, on […]
