Best Traditional Funeral Director 2017
There was no shortage of candidates for this category, and the shortlisted 13 names included individuals as well as companies. Traditional funeral directing continues to thrive, and the judges found it difficult to select the most deserving from among the entries submitted as all clearly have the highest of standards and impeccable presentation. Eventually the […]
Dignity in Blunderland
Posted by Charles A relatively new element of the Christmas experience is the themed winter wonderland. We’ve already had our first hilarious example of 2016 in Bakewell, Derbyshire. The Sun headline captured it neatly: WINTER BLUNDERLAND. Bakewell Winter Wonderland slammed by families as ‘pile of s***’ that is ‘so bad even Santa f***** it off’. […]
Traditional Funeral Director of the Year
Trevor E. W. Hickton Trevor EW Hickton Ltd cleaves to funeral traditions and justly prides itself on its ceremonial excellence. The firm is also open-minded about new trends and works in a mutually supportive spirit with other independent funeral businesses. Cradley Heath-based funeral directors Trevor E.W. Hickton have been carrying out the funerals of […]
Wise words
Ru’s opening words to the assembled guests struck a chord with many who were there, so we thought we’d put them on the blog for the whole world to read. Over to you Rupert. “Welcome everyone to the Good Funeral Awards 2016! It started off, as so many good things do, in a sweaty basement […]
Tradition is a guide, not a jailer
When Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen was at large on tv’s Changing Rooms, it was not unusual for people to weep when they saw what he’d done to their living room and, through their tears, defiantly declare that, first chance they got, they were going go out and buy 5 litres of brilliant white. Not all, mind. […]
Funerals, who needs em?
When England first played Scotland, on 30 November 1872, both teams employed formations that would raise eyebrows today. Scotland went for a cautious 2-2-6 while England employed a more swashbuckling 1-1-8. The game was all kick-and-rush in those days. Kick-and-rush. It’s how businesses, anxious to futureproof themselves, respond to prophecy. Some bright spark peers into […]
Fusion funerals: Cockneys, immigrants and Hackney hipsters
Posted by Richard Rawlinson The story of T. Cribb & Sons is one of business resilience in the cultural quicksand of London’s East End. A family-run firm of undertakers since 1881, its heritage is Cockney: close-knit, white, working class communities celebratory of both their roots and the material trappings of wealth: pie and mash and the […]
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, […]
We need to talk about funerals
Posted by Vale But, I hear you say, we do already. All the time. Interminably. And, of course, we do. This website springs from the Good Funeral Guide and the blog is full of discussions about new ways to dispose of bodies, about wild and wonderful flights of imagination in the services that are being […]
Individuality in the Requiem Mass?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine (Eternal rest give to them, O Lord). There is often talk about the tone of funerals: the balance between celebrating a life and grieving a loss; the ratio of bespoke parts reflecting individuality, to formulaic parts reflecting the universality of death. Catholics expect this balance in […]
