End of Life Planning Makes a Difficult Situation Much Easier
Posted by Colin Moore One of the toughest challenges anyone can face in their lifetime is losing a loved one and then having to guess what kind of funeral and memorial service they would have wanted, also to try to locate important documents and find the answers to key questions. But it does not have to […]
The view below the radar
An article in the Times dated 15 July, based on an interview with Mike McCollum, ceo of Dignity plc, offers one or two (no more) features of interest. His definition of an undertaker? “We’re event organisers,” says McCollum. “We arrange a family event for you on very short notice, which you wish you didn’t have […]
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, […]
I have seen the future and it doesn’t work
The ability to transmute base metal into gold is a very neat trick. So neat, in fact that, as the record shows, it has never, for all the perspiration of the world’s best brains since the dawn of time, been accomplished. The reverse is very much easier, and this is the specialism of today’s alchemists […]
They want my reply. What should I say?
Good morning, I have been admiring your website and would like to enquire about the possibility of having Staysure Prepaid funeral plans listed on your website. Staysure.co.uk established in 2004, achieved 8th position in the recently published Sunday Times Fastrack 100 list. Staysure has teamed up with Dignity to offer the Guaranteed Funeral Plan to […]
Endgame
Interesting, isn’t it, how myopically self-absorbed people become when glancing forward to their demise. “Stick me in a binbag and put me out with the rubbish,” they say, men mostly. It’s right up there now in the top ten death clichés alongside “He’s gone to a better place,” “It’s only a shell,” and “She will […]
funeralcomparison.co.uk
A reader has written to me to draw my attention to funeralcomparison.co.uk. Is it, he asks, a scam? I’d not come across it before. If you go to the site you’ll find that it enables you to, in their words, “find the exact funeral requirements you require in-line with your budget. You can search from over […]
Lovingly Managed responds to its critics and doubters
When I wrote this post I guessed what the responses were likely to be. The funeral industry does not like to be interloped. Catherine Corless of Lovingly Managed has posted the following comment and, for fear that you might miss it, I am re-posting it here: Well, we do seem to have ruffled a few […]
Indy undertakers on the counter-attack
Saif’s IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey published in February 2010 was dynamite. It showed that independents are generally cheaper than two big beasts of the industry, Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity. Had Saif got the message out to the funeral-buying public it would have hit the big beasts’ bottom line bigtime. But the message never got out, […]
It won’t make you dead
Gail Rubin is a writer and blogger in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve just looked up Albuquerque on google maps. It’s a long way from a decent beach. Gail has written a book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, which will be published at the end of this month. She […]
