Entrepreneur Howard Hodgson, who spectacularly transformed the UK funeral business in the 1980s, has penned a very honest and open autobiography about his remarkable life in the death industry – and his own grief.
Father-of-six Howard, 74 who is credited with revolutionising his family’s business after it was on the brink of bankruptcy and then the wider industry, chronicles his work as the country’s most prolific funeral director and his colourful world of sex, tough business days, violence and tragedy.
In the book, his fifth, This Life in Death, Volume One: The Struggle – published by Chipmunka – Howard writes movingly about the heartbreaking death of his three-year-old son Charles in a Thailand hotel swimming pool in 1982, how he became consumed with grief after having been surrounded by other people’s suffering and sadness for decades and how it helped him even more determined on a ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you’ policy going forward.
The poignant volume, the first of two, highlights Birmingham-born Howard’s business acumen and ruthlessness, which saw him make millions through innovation and acquisition, transforming the way funeral directors are run and how burials and cremations are conducted in the UK.
It is a rags-to-riches story which charts Howard’s rise as a fourth-generation funeral director from overseeing a single branch in 1975 to 569 by 1991, culminating in his business becoming the biggest of its kind in Britain and being floated on the stock market. His rock star looks and gun-slinging attitude made him Britain’s most famous funeral director – a high-profile favourite of the media, who christened him Mr. Death, – and of the opposite sex. Howard, a self-confessed sexaholic, who now lives in Monaco, was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1987 and one of PM Margaret Thatcher’s top businessmen of that decade.
He has produced a powerful tome about bravery and resilience in the face of hardship and tragedy, of bouncing back and never giving up, a lesson in business, entrepreneurship and innovation. Howard, who also wrote a biography of King Charles – The Man Who Will Be King – in 2007, said “I wanted to tell the world about my rollercoaster life to encourage others to say “Why not me too?” It has been a cathartic process and I’m pleased with the result – I hope the readers are too.
“I hope my career can be a blueprint for and inspiration to entrepreneurs, a lesson in never giving up, reinvention and building resilience. I believe that real wealth can be made by anyone with drive and determination. For it is these qualities and not academia which made me rich despite all my other failings.”
Howard, a Beatles obsessive and fervent Aston Villa fan who once attempted to take over the club, started off as a funeral apprentice in 1968 before taking over the Midlands-based family business seven years later. He personally conducted thousands of funerals for almost 20 years before creating Hodgson Holdings plc which floated in 1986 and revolutionised the machinations of the industry.
The company became a London stock exchange darling with shares rising nearly 400% in one year. Then, in 2003, he founded his own crematorium company, Memoria, which owns and operates 14 crematoria in the UK, carrying out some 28, 000 cremations each year.
He also founded Affordable Funerals which became one of the UK’s largest online funeral director, performing some 30, 000 at-need funeral arrangements or pre-arranged funeral plans per year. The second volume of his memoirs is due to be published later in 2025.
A fourth generation funeral director, Howard trained with James Summers of Cardiff in 1968. He took over the family business in 1975 and launched an expansion programme that culminated in the flotation of Hodgson Holdings in 1986.
Through subsequent mergers the company formed the largest funeral/crematorium group in the UK. Howard sold his interests in 1992, having taken the company to 546 branches and became ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 1987’; in the process. He is largely recognised as the individual who transformed the funeral industry in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s.
This Life in Death, Volume One: The Struggle by Howard Hodgson.
Publisher: Chipmunka Publishing.
January 2025, ISBN 9781783827169.
MEDIA CONTACT: Dominic Mohan
