WR Chapman off to the crem on the back of one of his own. Where did that lovely cabinet come from?
Full story here
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
Back in the day, it was a given of the natural order that the decomposition of our remains made us part of the food chain. In the last few decades, the negative environmental impact of burial and cremation has become an ethical issue. Although there’s increasing scepticism towards scientific claims about man-made global warming, one can still want to reduce air, soil and water pollution, with its adverse affects on our health and that of wildlife.
Embalming chemicals; hardwood coffins; concrete vaults; quarried headstones; marble mausoleums; processional motorcades; non-organic flowers and refreshments: all on the bad list.
Cardboard coffins and biodegradable urns; planting a tree to mark a resting place; new crematoria chimneys that reduce emissions; removal of mercury-amalgam fillings before cremation; car-sharing and locally-sourced refreshments: all on the good list.
While dictating the menu of the buffet and the material of headstones might seem too finger-wagging, there’s a case for reducing toxins by replacing embalming formaldehyde with glutaraldehyde, which is less poisonous, and designing ‘clean’ smokestacks.
That’s the beauty of technological evolution. Sophisticated Man’s primal survival instinct remains intact, He devises solutions to problems that arise. People argue over the best course of action, or the urgency of action, but the doomsayers are invariably silenced.
Nuclear fuel and GM food polarise opinion when proposed as the sustainable answer to the world’s needs. Some see wind farms as an answer while others see them as useless energy generators that guzzle fossil fuel in their construction, slice up birds and damage tourism as eco-eyesores.
In his new book, Watermelons (so-titled because they’re green on the outside and red on the inside), James Delingpole discusses the Climategate scandal in which tax payer-funded scientists manipulated research in the most unscientific ways to make man-made warming claims stand up. Their lies, cover-ups, distortions and exaggerations, claims Delingpole, have caused mass hysteria resulting in liberties curtailed and trillions of pounds squandered.
What’s your take on the green movement’s influence on the funeral industry? Necessary initiatives welcomed by today’s consumers? Or overdone and greeted with apathy or scepticism?
Former HGV driver Darren Abey has created a hearse fit for fans of Del Boy and Rodney and is marketing it under the snappy business name of Only Fools and Hearses.
Says Mr Abey, ‘I got two scrap cars, both three-wheelers, which weren’t worth anything and only useful for their fibreglass parts. We stripped and gutted them and cut up the vehicle to stretch it to a length of 8 foot 8 inches, so we had a stretched three-wheeler that would be suitable to use as the trailer.’
The conversion cost him £8,000. His hearse even has leopard print fake fur on the dashboard.
We can’t find a website for Mr Abey’s business, but we can tell you that the full story is in the Daily Mail here.
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, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.
It’s out in May 2012!
He’s one of life’s good guys, is David Hicks, whose brainchild the hotrod hearse is. Here’s his story:
Midlands Co-op has announced the launch of its very own trike hearse. The Rocket, they call it. It’s fast, it “lets bike lovers choose a send-off in a style that mirrors the way they lived – not in a sidecar or trailer but on a custom-designed, built-for-speed motorcycle.”
Whether or not this is this is a handsome conveyance has been the subject of curt debate here at the GFG-Batesville Tower. Someone noted its central wheel and wondered how it would cope with snow. Someone else wondered about those who have specified a motorcycle hearse in their Midlands Co-op funeral plan, with a sidecar hearse in mind; is this what they’re going to get instead?
Aesthetics aside, here’s another very good motive for suppliers of specialist services and merchandise to cut their ties with undertakers and go direct to the consumer. A far better deal for both parties.
Midlands Co-op announcement here.
From This is Surrey Today:
SCORES of cyclists formed a guard of honour for the funeral procession of a popular cyclist.
More than 120 people from local clubs turned out to honour Pete Mitchell at Randalls Park Crematorium in Leatherhead last Thursday.
Mr Mitchell covered a staggering 570,000 miles during 62 years of cycling.
He died on September 16 at the age of 76 and according to his daughter Jake Dodd, 41, of Epsom, he went out the way he would have wanted to.
She said: “He rode 37 miles back home from Maidenhead, had his tea, went to bed and then didn’t wake up, which was a really lovely way to go.”
What a great turnout for Mr Mitchell. If only, we can’t help thinking, his family had known about the Rev Paul Sinclair’s bicycle hearse.
Some things have Wow Factor and they may or may not wow you. Here at the Good Funeral Guide we are far more susceptible to things that have Oh Wow Factor (big difference), and the latest thing to Oh Wow us is the brand new, not yet launched, 1965 Morris Minor hearse.
She’s called Trudy. Trudy the Traveller. Here’s what her owners, Andrew and Judith Bywater, have to say about her:
Trudy was built and registered in 1965. She was supplied by Colmore Depot, based at West Bromwich in the West Midlands. She led a normal life, becoming gradually run-down through daily use, until Andrew bought her as a complete wreck in April 2009. It has taken two and a half years of painstaking work to restore her to show condition, and she is due to be displayed at our launch at the NEC classic car show in November 2011.
She looks like a lovely piece of work, and here at GFG HQ we request and require all funeral directors who read this blog (we know there are lots of you; we suppose you to be the best) to get in touch with Andrew and Judith and offer this to your clients. Baby Boomers throughout the land will have their heartstrings tugged by this little beauty. Their first car was probably a Morris Minor.
Photos from the Morris Minor Hearse Company, which you can find here.
