Pauper-bashing?
FREE FUNERALS HERE! I bet you’ve never seen a banner outside your local registrar’s office with those words on it. Because the free (aka public health) funeral is, if not a well-kept secret, not something councils bang on about. Its minimalist aesthetic might make it irresistibly attractive to the middle classes. Seriously, the public health funeral enables us to […]
Hands on funeral for homeless man
Undertaker Rupert Callender in Totnes is appealing to his fellow townspeople to turn out to help carry the coffin of a homeless man, Michael Gething, through the streets to his funeral — and then on to the burying ground at Follaton, just outside the town. Rupert Callender said: “The act of carrying his coffin all […]
Walking away
Public health, council or (a new term to us) public funerals are on the rise in Burnley Lancashire, a once-thriving mill town from which manufacturing has ebbed, leaving a generally impecunious population — but a halfway decent football team. A report in the Lancashire Telegraph tells us: In 2007 Burnley Council paid for three public […]
Fact of the day
Just over three-quarters of public health funerals conducted in 2010/11 were for men. Stat generated by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. More here.
