Quote of the day
“All doctors have the knowledge and – usually – the means to end their lives … and quite a few use this privilege, even if it doesn’t appear on their death certificates. Doctors are also more likely to have medical friends and relations prepared to assist if necessary. As a doctor, this is a great […]
All the world’s a stage
“A couple of parting thoughts on the development of new ritual for secular funerals before I switch off the computer for Christmas,” wrote our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson some days before the onset of festivities. Yikes, sorry, Richard; we lost that post in the tinsel. We’re not letting it go, though; your thoughts about […]
Love letter to self
The Co-operative Funeralcare has helped generations of families through difficult times, providing care support and reassurance when it matters most. The Co-operative Funeralcare has become the country’s leading funeral director because of the high quality of care we deliver through our people working at a local level, who are backed by resources and expertise that […]
Ashes
Ashes at the funeral home six hundred still to be collected small boxes, cardboard, filed in rows a kind of shell grit for the chickens fifteen years six hundred still that somehow somewhere should be scattered: sown like seed across a paddock thrown as gravel upon water or set there upon the mantelpiece and added […]
Obits with ah bits
If you’re the sort of person who likes to settle in front of the fire with a nice column of obits, there’re none we rate higher than those in the Times Colonist, in Canada. They’re not all brilliant, of course. But every so often you’ll encounter one which isn’t a catalogue of biographical facts that […]
A tale of two funerals
Over in Pyongyang mourners wail for the loss of the great leader Kim Jong Il. As Andrew McLaughlin puts it: This is really otherworldly. And terrifying. It’s depressing to be reminded that it’s possible, with energetic and relentless propaganda, surveillance, and oppression, to delude vast numbers of human beings into genuine feelings of attachment to, […]
Singer-songwriter-undertaker
A MUSIC-loving funeral director could soon be playing a key role in a national songwriting competition. Distinguished figures like Sir Terry Wogan, ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris and Johnnie Walker may be casting a critical ear over a song penned for charity by Neil Brunton – if he can secure enough online votes. Neil’s song, ‘Jacob Street’, […]
Making over the undertakers
Following this post by Andrew Hickson of Kingfisher Independent Funeral Services in St Neots, we at the GFG sense we may spend some of 2012 talking about how funeral directors can improve public perception of themselves and differentiate themselves from their competitors by communicating the good news about themselves appropriately and effectively. Andrew himself is […]
Stealing a march?
By Andrew Hickson, proprietor of Kingfisher Independent Funeral Services, St Neots. A couple of days ago, Charles asked me to write a blog post about marketing. I wanted to approach this from the point-of-view of a Funeral Director such as myself who has recently established a business, and is therefore dazzled, bemused and somewhat apprehensive […]
Going the wrong way
Roughly a third of family members of I.C.U. patients show symptoms of post-traumatic stress, according to research by the French intensive-care expert Elie Azoulay and his collaborators. If a loved one dies in intensive care after discussions about advance directives and patient wishes — that is, after the family has been made fully aware of the finality […]
