Assisted Dying in England and Wales – one step closer.
A profound and radical shift took place last week, and at the Good Funeral Guide, we feel it is essential to acknowledge it. On Friday 29th November, the Private Members Bill sponsored by Kim Leadbeater MP, The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, passed its second reading in the House of Commons with 330 votes in […]
Free until the point of death
Click the letter and you’ll make it bigger and readable. It’s from Angie Gunn, Mortuary Services Admin Co-ordinator at Stockport NHS Trust. It’s been sent to all local undertakers. “From 1 Oct, once all paperwork regarding the release of a body has been received, you will be contacted by a member of the Mortuary […]
Funeral wishes are no more than wishful thinking
‘You can decide everything in advance if you wish, down to the kind of music you’d like – and there’s no charge for changing or updating your wishes at a later stage.’ Golden Charter ‘…pre-planning your funeral is actually a thoughtful and responsible way to show that you care your family … your family are spared […]
Groundhog week
22 Jan is reckoned the worst, most depressing day of the year. This week is as bad as it gets. Nodding in agreement? Reasons to be cheerless, according to Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff university are: weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to […]
Time the law caught up with the unmarried bereaved?
Joe Wilkins was killed by a car while out cycling. The motorist responsible admitted causing death by dangerous driving. In England, under the terms of the Fatal Accidents Act, a spouse, civil partner or the parents of a minor killed in an accident caused by the negligence of breach of duty of another are eligible […]
Habeas corpse
Bristol undertaker Thomas Davis has been branded a “‘Burke and Hare’ operation” by MP Caroline Noakes after her constituent Peter Williams accused the undertakers of taking his mother-in-law’s body from Bristol Royal Infirmary and keeping it for ten days without asking. She said: “Thomas Davis acted unlawfully, because all that had been requested by the Williams family […]
RICHARD III – ILLEGALLY EXHUMED?
Posted by John Bradfield ED’s note: John Bradfield, founder of the Alice Barker Trust and author of the groundbreaking Green Burial, the DIY Guide, campaigns, together with Teresa Evans, for the legal rights of the bereaved. Here he argues that Richard III was illegally exhumed. He presents this argument in the context of his and Teresa’s wider […]
You are the referee
Here’s another pay-up-or-else story — true but anonymised and deliberately undated. A funeral director is refusing to hand over the ashes until the balance of the bill is settled — which it will be if the DSS claim is successful. Does he have the right to do this? You can’t arrest a corpse for debt […]
What constitutes corpse abuse?
We don’t have abuse of a corpse laws in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, nor Scotland, not like they do in the US. Indeed, the laws around what you can, can’t and must do with a corpse in the UK are few — so few that we’ve never managed to discover what they are. Perhaps […]
Habeas corpse
An email flies in from a consumer advocacy org in the US. It’s about a British funeral consumer, let’s call him Jim, who has asked them for help. Jim has been told by his funeral director that there will be no funeral until he pays most of the bill upfront. Jim can manage much of […]
