To SAIF – an open letter from a member
An open letter to SAIF, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors from Cara Mair, Director, ARKA Original Funerals, sent 4th May 2018. Dear all at SAIF I write this to you as a longstanding member of SAIF, in the hope that you will not see this letter negatively, but more as a […]
Dead and Gone
We’ve been pondering on an important subject. In 21st century Britain, many of us may not have seen or spent time with the body of someone who has died. We may not have witnessed the profound absence of person in the familiar features of a corpse, nor experienced the thoughts and emotions of being in […]
The NAFD has a new CEO
We were pleased to receive an e-mail recently advising us that the National Association of Funeral Directors has appointed an interim CEO, some four months since the role became vacant. It’s been quite a while without a steady hand at the NAFD tiller, and taking on the tasks that would normally be […]
Collaboration not competition.
According to Twitter, the website and an e-mail bulletin sent out yesterday, the Good Funeral Awards will be taking place this year in Bournemouth in September. We think it worth noting that the Good Funeral Guide is no longer involved with these events and will not be attending. We ended our involvement with the awards […]
Other funeral ‘homes’ are also available…
Dying Matters, the former NCPC coalition, now under the wings of Hospice UK, sent out an e-mail bulletin this week with an update on this year’s Dying Matters Awareness Week, presumably to most of their 32,000 members. Top feature in the bulletin was the large Co-op logo and blurb shown above. The neat hook of […]
Something for the weekend? Some good reading – and another book.
At GFG Towers we do like a good book, and recently we have indulged our book buying habit rather a lot – a pile of our recent acquisitions is shown above, all thoroughly well worth a read for anyone with an interest in dying and death. Last week, our attention was drawn to another […]
Breaking the silence – a guest post
Guest post Ed’s note – the writer of this blog post is known to us, however their identity is being withheld for reasons that are obvious. ‘The subject of bullying is in the media a lot these days, especially bullying within the work place. Most fair and just people think that any kind of bullying […]
Lifting the lid on coffin prices
These are turbulent times in the world of funerals, and we were delighted to hear last week of another innovative idea – a funeral director prepared to offer EXACTLY the same coffins that your friendly high street (corporate) undertaker has in their range, at a realistic price! Gone are the breathtaking markups that you […]
Dignity Directors Divest Themselves
We’re not experts in stocks and shares here at GFG Towers, not by a long way, but even to us the sight of lots of top executives in a company selling their shares in the months before issuing profit warnings and presiding over a slump of around 50% in share value looks a little […]
St. Margaret’s Hospice Funerals
It’s here! Today’s the day that the first Hospice Funerals branch in the UK opens for business. The people of Taunton have been watching the refurbishment of the former charity shop over the last few weeks, as the grey paint (not dark and forbidding) was applied to the exterior and the shiny new furnishings […]
