funeral directors

Suffolk police have come under fire for their practice of awarding cash payments to officers who have to deal with exceptionally difficult or distressing incidents — a particularly horrible road crash, for example or, in the words of the Police and Crime Commissioner, “picking up charred remains of bodies from house fires and picking up decomposed bodies out of rivers with their own hands.” Traumatic circumstances like these may qualify a policeman for a cash payment of £50-£500. “These are over-and-above, additional tasks that no amount of training can prepare officers for.”

The Taxpayers’ Alliance describes the payments as “macabre” and says: “it is vital that the right support is in place, but throwing bonuses at the problem is not the solution.”

The Ipswich Star records that ambulance staff and firefighters are not eligible for such payments. 

The bonuses are, of course, a charge on the taxpayer. The process whereby trauma is mitigated by a wodge of cash is not explained.

How would it be if funeral directors were to start charging extra for ‘distressing’ removals, and adding the charges to their clients’ bills? 

Story in the Ipswich Star here. Hat-tip to GMT

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

It’s a crying shame St Joseph of Arimathea shares his feast day with St Patrick on 17 March. The patron saint of funeral directors gets ignored in a wash of green and Guinness. But the world’s most famous undertaker is particularly special to Britain, and well worth your prayers seeking his intercession. His story takes us from the cross and tomb of Our Lord to Glastonbury and the Holy Grail.

Mentioned in all four Gospels, Joseph was a wealthy merchant and follower of Christ who demonstrated tremendous bravery and kindness: he went to Pontius Pilate asking for permission to take Christ’s body from the Cross at Calvary and prepare Him for burial; he cleaned the tortured, bloodied body, anointed it with oils, shrouded it in linen and carried it to a cave tomb he’d prepared for his own use.

The Bible says nothing more about Joseph but legend continues his story. It’s said he was uncle of the Virgin Mary, a claim originating from the tradition that the senior male relative of a crucified man is responsible for dealing with the body. With Our Lady’s older husband, St Joseph, no longer alive, our Joseph stepped forward.

It’s said he made his money trading metals which took him to the northern reaches of the Roman Empire, including the tin mines of Cornwall. As an account for some of Jesus’s ‘lost’ years between childhood and ministry, it’s claimed great uncle Joseph took Jesus with him on one of these trips, hence William Blake’s Jerusalem:

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

Joseph’s ties with England continue. He’s said to have accompanied Apostle Philip, Mary Magdalene and other followers of Christ on a preaching mission to Gaul, with Joseph then sailing across the Channel to the island with which he was already familiar.

Possibly the first missionary in Britain between AD37-50, Joseph settled in Glastonbury. Not only did he have firsthand credibility as a missionary but he also brought sacred relics: vials of Christ’s blood and sweat from the Cross, and the cup used during the Last Supper. The Holy Grail, no less.

Here, Bible-extending apocryphal tales mix with Medieval myths about Avalon. Some say Joseph is the original founder of Glastonbury Abbey, which is also claimed as the burial place of King Arthur. The Holy Grail is said to be hidden in Chalice Well, near the Abbey, since destroyed during the Reformation. Glastonbury’s parish church remains dedicated to St Joseph.

These stories make a case for Joseph as patron saint, not just of undertakers, but of all England rather than George, the dragon-slayer. Some also judge Jerusalem as a better choice of national anthem than the one we have.

FDs, do you know how lucky you are?

From an email sent to the GFG: 

Hi Charles

A friend told me about your website. She says you you like to hear about interesting funerals. Well wait till you hear about mine.

My mum died in hospital — long illness, merciful release and all that. My brother Stephen and I were determined she wasn’t going to go the way of dad and be swallowed up by the sort of undertaker who, you know, paralyses your brain with that voice they use and all that Carlson out of Downton crap, and serves up the sort of funeral that makes you think you could be at anybody’s. I rang around to see what I could suss. 

I decided to try out a chap called Geoffrey Hawkins. He sounded nice and normal on the phone, quite breezy in fact, and he didn’t tell me he was sorry for my loss, a big plus. When I went to see him – nice house – there was a notice on the door saying to go round the back. Turns out he’s an IT whizz, works from home, and just does a bit of undertaking on the side. Geoff was up a ladder fixing a climbing rose. He asked me to hold the ladder and tell him about mum. After a bit he came down and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. Or a beer. I said a beer would be nice, so we sat in the garden. I thought we’d sort out times and flowers and notices in the newspapers and a coffin for mum but instead he asked me how I wanted to feel when I got home after the funeral. He said a funeral has to justify all the time and expense by doing a job of work — it has to earn its keep. I said, It’s something you just do for christsake. He said, Oh no it’s not, not unless there’s a good reason to. Then he set me what he called homework. Go home, talk to Stephen and anybody else, and write down what we thought was the point of having a funeral for mum and make a list of everything we reckoned we needed to do for her.

Next morning I was just about to ring him and call it all off when he rang me first to say he was going to collect mum from the hospital and was on his way to pick me up. I said, I thought that was your job. He said, She’s your mum, she’d like you and Stephen to be there for her. I said, Stephen’s had to go to work. He said, you’ll do.

I have to admit, though I was dreading it, something made me go through with it — something told me that Geoff, if certifiably mad, was somehow my kind of madman. Even though mum was in this awful body bag thing he was incredibly gentle with her. I talked to her on the way back and when we got there Geoff said well done. And he really meant it. I felt I was on a journey now and was determined to get to the end. I chose a nice wickerwork coffin for mum made by Roger Fowle. He handed me the phone and said ring him. Roger said to pop over and give him a hand if I wanted.

I asked Geoff about someone to take the service — perhaps one of those nice humanists, cos mum never went to church but she wasn’t exactly anti religion. He asked if I had made that list yet. I said not quite. He said, What’s the point of booking a humanist if you don’t know what you want to do? I reluctantly agreed we’d cross that bridge when Stephen and I had done our homework.

It went on like this. Every time I told Geoff that Stephen and I were too busy, S at work and me needing to get paperwork sorted, and the bank, etc, Geoff just said, Get your priorities sorted, the paperwork can wait, focus on mum and get some useful grieving done. He was that blunt, I always knew exactly where I was with the bugger. He said, When I ring you, that’s your priority.

He rang to say he was about to wash and dress mum, would I like to help him. I said no. He said to think about it. I said no. Then, before he could say another word I completely lost it and screamed at him to do his damn job and earn his bloody money and stop f*****g pressuring me, didn’t he understand how I was feeling? He rang back two hours later as if I hadn’t screamed at him at all to say that mum was dressed and looking lovely, but needed me to go and do her hair and nails. I went. It was some of the best time I have ever spent with her and I wished I had been there for everything, it was a totally beautiful experience that I can’t put into words. When I came out he was in the garden with a nice cold beer waiting for me. We did the paperwork for the crematorium then he said, You’ll need to pop a cheque in there and take it out to them. 

That’s when Stephen and I decided we didn’t need a humanist, we’d do it all ourselves thank you.

Geoff never let up. I told him we wanted a hearse for mum, a bit of pomp and circumstance. He said he’d got one, but Stephen and I would need to come and clean and polish it. Stephen was well pissed off about that, but I could feel there was some sort of logic somewhere. Stephen said to Geoff, I hope you’re going to dress up and walk in front of it. Geoff said you are going to walk in front of it, she’s not my mum, we need to talk about the procession.

We devised a plan — and here’s what we did. Geoff was insured for us to drive the hearse. Stephen and I picked mum up in the morning and drove her around some favourite places and spent this last precious time with her. Everyone coming to the funeral had been asked to wait just inside the gates for us to arrive. When we got there, I got out and walked in front of the hearse with mum’s grandchildren, Stephen drove, everyone else followed. It was only about 150 metres so even mum’s friends were able to cope. It felt really good. Geoff was waiting outside the crematorium and gave me a wink.

Suddenly I realised we had done nothing about about who was going to carry the coffin and I felt this surge of anger towards Geoff. He said ssh, there’s no problem, how did I want to do it? I said, Well, the usual way on people’s shoulders of course. He said fine, if you want to exclude women, children, disabled people, short people, very tall people. He was boringly right again. We all just grabbed a bit, all those closest to mum, grandkids and all and held on for dear life. It wasn’t a bit like the Thatcher funeral and there was some giggling – she would have loved it – but we got her on the caterplank or whatever it’s called. And there was this wonderful mood of togetherness and warmth among everyone. Geoff whispered to me, Nothing like a bit of creative chaos to break the ice, is there? and left us to it.

Charles, I could go on and on about how wonderful the funeral was but you haven’t got the time and I haven’t got the words yet. That’s all I can say just now. It was awesome.

Geoff’s bill was ridiculously small but, as he said, he’d done as little as he could get away with. He asked how I felt when I got home. I told him I poured myself a huge glass of wine, toasted mama in the skies and just felt GOOD. Mum ok with it? YES! He said, Are you proud? I said, YESSS! He said, Sorted, well done our kid. And he gave me a big hug.

Best regards,

Helen

PS I went and spent an afternoon with Roger making mum’s coffin. Roger rocks! 

The stopping train takes more or less forever to get to Edinburgh through the fertile fracking fields of the desolate north-east. I’d been invited to look round  Scotmid Co-operative Funeral Directors. Scotmid is a small, independent members’ co-operative dating back to 1859. It owns 10 funeral homes. Like all co-operatives, it both co-operates and competes with other co-operatives. Co-operative Funeralcare has a big presence up here, especially in Glasgow.

The premier funeral director in Edinburgh is William Purves, admiringly spoken of by all and acknowledged to be superb. It is a firm governed by Christian values — all key staff are practising Christians – and it is characterised by a gender balance which you can muse on here.

I was interested to see how Scotmid upholds soft co-operative values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others in what is a very competitive field.

Scotmid has come a long way in the five years since it appointed Englishman James Blackburn as its Head of Funerals. Back then it was known as Grotmid. James has upped its standards, revamped its funeral homes, replaced ageing vehicles, instituted training programmes and CPD. Hats off to James’s firm but unobtrusive management style. He’s loving his job and he’s clearly something of an alchemist. The business is thriving. Last year the funerals arm accounted for just 1 per cent of Scotmid’s turnover but 13 per cent of its profit.

I quickly established from my brilliant driver, Paul, that funeral traditions in this part of Scotland remain notably black and traditional. I debated with him whether he supposed a strong sense of nationalism to be a contributory factor. In England, after all, where loyalty to national customs is not strong, there is wide diversity of funeral styles — more people do their own thing. I remarked on the abundance of Saltires fluttering from buildings and told Paul that, in England, a St George’s flag tends to be viewed with wariness. He was surprised.

Things have moved on. Funerals in Scotland are no longer events from which women are excluded. Even the custom of assigning burial cords to pallbearers is now shared between the sexes. Each pallbearer receives a position card detailing which cord to take. 

Church ministers don’t charge for conducting funerals in Scotland. As they say, it’s part of their job. Bereaved people may make a donation in lieu. The rate for secular celebrants is, therefore, by English standards, depressed – around £150. Even retired ministers only ask for £80-100. The interface between death and commerce was ever uneasy.

Scotmid has a big ‘hub’ mortuary at its premises in Forrester Park Drive. Obviously, we paid particular attention to it. We gave it full marks. The garage is here, too. There isn’t room to house all the vehicles under one roof, so some stay out all night in full view – in one of Edinburgh’s less salubrious areas. Does no one ever lob a drunken, Friday night brick at them? Never. The staff have ‘an understanding’ with the locals. We were pleased to spend some time with Scotmid’s embalmer. Embalming is a Cinderella service if ever there was one. You get to spend all day in a windowless room, and it’s the arranger who receives all the praise and gratitude from visiting families. So: here’s to you, Pete.

Every country presents a language barrier to visitors, and Scotland is no different. The words may be English but the accent is something else. I wasn’t able to tune my ear by interacting with the hotel staff because they were all Eastern Europeans. So there were, I’m ashamed to say, episodes of incomprehension followed by my embarrassed requests to repeat, slowly. Vocabulary sometimes differs. In Scotland, they prefer ‘parlour’ to ‘funeral home’, and I was delighted to hear someone refer to a ‘funeral undertaker’. I was especially interested to hear Jacqueline Spiers, a procurator fiscal depute (coroner in England and Wales) from Glasgow, refer to ‘the corpse’. How refreshing to hear someone use such a euphemism-free term, I reflected… until I realised that Jacquie was, actually, referring to ‘the cops’.

Jacquie was speaking at a conference for everyone at Scotmid funerals. It was the first time they’d done it – and on a Saturday, too. The lure of bacon sandwiches on arrival was enough to bring everyone together to hear a range of luminaries including Dr Brian Parsons and the Rev Paul Sinclair. Scotmid’s chief exec, John Brodie, remarked that at the same sort of event for other branches of Scotmid he’d expect a fair number of shuffling latecomers. The funeral people were there, every last one of them, on the dot. Of course.

It’s never entirely easy being an English person in a Celtic country – you never know what historic wickedness you’re going to have to apologise for. Jacquie Spiers, marvellously feisty in all things, raged against the denial of responsibility to procurators fiscal of powers of enquiry into any Scot who dies abroad. ‘Our dead belong to us.’ She was at her most thrilling when describing her mission to hunt down those who kill unlawfully, including those who mistreat the elderly. She appealed to all present to bring to her attention any dead person who showed signs of neglect or ill-treatment in a care home. Would that there were more of this everywhere. Would that there were more like Jacquie. Amazing woman.

A funeral home/parlour is only as good as the people who work in it. Scotmid’s people really are outstandingly nice, full of warmth and character, and I hope I managed to convey that to them credibly. I was sad to say goodbye to them. I’ve written a review here.

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Imagine picking up a well-thumbed penny novel by an unknown Victorian author at your secondhand bookshop and, on starting to read it, discovering to your surprise that a family of undertakers is depicted in a favourable light.

We’re used to Charles Dickens, who loathed undertakers as much as he despised Jews like the money-hording reprobate, Fagin, in Oliver Twist, and the mean-spirited Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Of course Scrooge didn’t warm to Christmas, he was the wrong religion!

Like Dickens’s Jewish caricatures, his undertaker, again in Oliver Twist, is a piece of work: a hunched, scrawny, ashen-faced, hand-wringing ghoul, waiting for death like a scavenger crow, ready to prey on vulnerable mourners, to oil cash out of them and then count it with miserly glee. When his shop bell rings, he salivates like Pavlov’s dog. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.

Crow, dog, spider, I’m mixing my metaphors, carried away by the melodrama! In truth, I cant even remember much about the undertaker in Oliver Twist, but I know he was a creep.

Has the funeral business fully recovered from its wrecked reputation during the 19^th century? Again employing artistic license, let’s return to the depiction of goodly undertakers in my ‘obscure Victorian novel’.

The main characters are a kindly father and his son, who makes the ladies of the borough swoon with his dashing looks and upright gait, complemented by impeccably-tailored mourning attire. Of an evening, conversation flows freely over candle-lit dinners with mother and daughter, a picture of domestic bliss as their hard-earned income provides for contented family life.

On days off, the son walks out with the haberdasher’s pretty daughter, the romantic interest of the story. At work, father and son work diligently in their tidy wood-panelled shop. When the doorbell chimes, they greet mourners courteously, perfectly judging the balance between sympathy and providing wares and services from coffin to coach and horses. Their seemly manner is second nature: besides, to be obsequious would be bad for business, as would cold salesmanship.

They witness suffering through their work. Despite medical advances, death, along with the decline towards death, is all around, a natural part of everyday life: mothers burying their babies; men struck down in the prime of life leaving the family facing the workhouse; visits to homes where the matriarch is laid out in the same bed in which she’d been born, and at which she’d watched her own parents die. The presence of death is even more stark in the slums across town, where life expectancy is far lower than that experienced by our undertakers. 

They’ve seen changes in their trade, too. Grandfather, an honest, ruddy-faced artisan, had been a cabinet-maker who built coffins on demand in the village. They did things simply back then, and without much professional assistance. Father is of the new generation who joined the growing numbers migrating to the city where he set up shop specifically as an undertaker.

Since Prince Albert’s untimely death, the Queen seems to have inspired a cult of mourning influencing all walks of society. The last important event in a person’s life, funerals have long been a rite of passage like baptism and marriage, but increasingly families seem intent on outdoing their neighbours with ever more spectacular funeral processions.

Father, a rational sort, finds the trend somewhat baffling, especially when some people virtually bankrupt themselves with additional black-plumed horses, extra coaches and a parade of professional mutes. On occasion, he’s gently advised less affluent customers to rein in their funeral ambitions. As an act of paternalism towards his housekeeper, he’s also waived costs so she could give a relative a send-off which she couldn’t otherwise afford.

The son, with youthful impatience motivated by aspirations to maximise his savings before asking the haberdasher’s daughter to marry him, expresses frustration at his father’s seeming softness in business.

Father rebukes him: ‘It is dishonest to exploit the pride and vanity of those who don’t see the virtue of living within their means,’ he says. ‘We would no longer merit the trust bestowed upon us if we were governed solely by the biggest and quickest profit. What goes around comes around, my son’.

The son grudgingly accedes to his father’s moral wisdom. They carry on serving the community as usual, the son slowly but surely making progress towards his goal of establishing his own marital home.

Then things start to go wrong. A popular newspaper is serialising a novel featuring a manipulative undertaker who is so grotesque he makes Uriah Heep seem like David Copperfield. Soon, the newspaper’s editor is publishing journalistic stories attacking, in general terms, the practices of real-life undertakers.

At first the people of the borough turn in subtle ways. Father and son notice visitors to the shop seem resentful and suspicious. When shown a coffin, they frostily enquire if there are cheaper models that will nevertheless impress onlookers. In time, they notice passers-by glaring at them through the window, or even wagging their gloved fingers, or shaking their umbrellas. ‘Shame on you,’ one shouts outside the door. ‘Bog off to where you came from,’ says another.

‘Why are we being demonised?’ says the son. ‘We only provide what they need, and sometimes we even advise them to spend less than they want to’.

‘We’re being tarred with the brush of the greediest members of our trade,’ says the father. ‘While the unscrupulous undertaker in the newspaper is fictional, there is indeed vice in our midst that’s giving us all a bad name. There’s no smoke without fire. But, fear not, justice will prevail, and good will out in the end.’

One night, they wake up with fright to the sound of baying drunks in the street, followed by an empty gin bottle crashing through their shop window. Venturing downstairs later, they see, painted in bold letters across the door, the words: DISMAL TRADER. By the side of these words is a rough image of a diamond-shaped coffin. Daubed in haste in the dead of night, it resembles the Star of David.

‘What the Dickens’, exclaims the son, ‘we’re not even Jewish’.

He then notices an envelope on the doormat, addressed to him in the handwriting of his fiancée. The ink is smudged, as if by tears.  

To be continued…