What is an undertaker for, really?
“Most people in the funeral industry are servants by nature, but it’s time that we took that servant nature and put it to better use by aiding you in the process of caring for your dead. Instead of doing it ourselves, we now need to be teachers, and not just directors; we need to be […]
Intellectual poverty
“People are also turning to alternatives to the traditional funeral. Some are holding do-it-yourself funerals, and even having to bury relatives in their back garden. A number of companies are offering cut-price funerals, including “direct” cremations that have no formal service attached to them.” That was Emma Lewell-Buck MP presenting the Funeral Services Bill in the House […]
Should he or shouldn’t he?
Jon Underwood at Death Café wants to open a permanent, community owned, not for profit Death Café in London. He says: “Until now, all of our Death Cafes have been pop-up events in local homes or venues. This project is to set up ‘Death Cafe London’, a coffee shop in central London offering people the […]
The product that has turned every sadness into a sales-op and every funeral into a retail event?
“The ‘buy now, die later’ brand of package deal has meant a lost connection between the sale of funerals and the delivery of them, and with it the loss of face-to-face accountability between buyer and seller that used to provide reliable consumer protection. Now the recipient of the services (the bereaved) and the provider […]
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 […]
The PM who was cremated before his funeral
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Neville Chamberlain (above) died from cancer on 9 November 1940, just six months after he resigned as Prime Minister. Winston Churchill, his successor, paid tribute to him on 12 November despite the two men having disagreed over the ‘appeasement’ of Hitler: ‘Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, […]
Gridlocked in Ross-on-Wye four days before Christmas
Guest post by David Hall Christmas is an important time of the year for Vintage Lorry Funerals as all of the 450 Funeral Directors, who display pictures of the 1950 Leyland Beaver, receive a Christmas Card in the second week of December. The process starts in July when David Hall’s wife chooses the most appropriate […]
Revealed: the one and only fix for funeral poverty
The problem: The circumstances of the death do not admit of any effective competition or precedent examination of the charges of different undertakers, or any comparison and consideration of their supplies. There is not time to change them for others that are less expensive, and more in conformity to the taste and circumstances of the […]
All fine by who?
Here’s something that’s been bobbling in my mind for ages. Finally, spurred by a newspaper story announcing that Grimbsy crematorium is going to fine funeral directors £159 if a service overruns, I sprang into action. I wrote to the crematorium manager: I see that NE Lincs Council has announced a surcharge of £159 in the […]
Remembering the dead
Older readers will recall that, by the 1970s, observance of the two minutes’ silence on 11/11 had declined in the civilian sphere to such an extent that a great many people paid no heed to it whatever and carried on doing whatever they were doing. There’s been a big revival of observance in recent years. In an article in […]
