Here at the Good Funeral Guide, we’re very proud of our accreditation programme. We look at each funeral business entirely from a consumer point of view. It’s thorough, it’s thoughtful and explores every aspect of what goes into, or what should go into, creating and running a funeral for the person who’s died, and the people around them.
We only recommend companies that we would have no hesitation in choosing for ourselves, so that the public can be safe in the knowledge that they are getting the very best of service from a funeral director who is able to respond to their needs and wishes.
We don’t recommend companies that are run by large corporate interests which their mind set ‘we don’t think it is broken, so we won’t fix it’ model of working. Recently, one of our directors was reminded of the reason why.
She found herself working with a branch of one such corporation. This business is seeking to raise its public profile, no doubt because it made an estimated loss of £11m in 2023. It has launched an advertising campaign encouraging people to have conversations about what kind of funeral they’d like to have.
In these adverts we see real people talking to each other about colourful attire, different kinds of hearses, brass bands, sunflowers and exploding one’s cremated remains into the sky. The adverts advocate that talking about death should be a normal part of life and to make sure that your funeral is not the same as everyone else’s.
They’ve also made a TV show about celebrities planning the funeral of a fellow (still alive) celebrity, along the lines of ‘Don’t tell the Bride’. In the episodes, we see the celebrity deep in conversation with a corporately dressed funeral arranger, where nothing is too much trouble.
But in truth, this does not translate to the services on the ground.
For a start, there is no longer a branch on every high street, as one bereaved family discovered when they found themselves ringing round to see which was their nearest branch that wasn’t either already closed or closing, because the person at the other end in a call centre didn’t know. The family was trying to arrange for the body of their person to be collected.
The same family then found that this company was unable to facilitate the coffin sitting on trestles next to them during the ceremony, rather than being far away on the catafalque.
Married for 65 years, his widow wanted to be by her husband’s side right until the end. It would have been easy to arrange, it just needed trestles provided and staff available to life the coffin respectfully onto the catafalque at the end of the ceremony.
But the bearers couldn’t stay for 30 minutes to make this happen.
“That’s not how it works” the arranger told the celebrant.
‘Can’t you arrange for the bearers to not have to rush off?
‘That’s not how it works, and I have no authority to change that. I can ask my manager, but they’ll probably say no”.
The solution? For it to either be business as usual or for the coffin to be on an electric wheeled bier during the ceremony and then mechanically hoisted on to the catafalque at the end for the moments of silence.
Funeral operatives may be used to this clinical looking piece of machinery, but the public are not. And let’s face it, they are ugly.
‘Can we put a cloth over it?”
“That’s not how it works.”
It could work, it could be made to work for the bereaved family, as a substitution for the apparently impossible task of having the coffin placed on trestles, but even this small token effort of trying to make a difficult day a little easier for their client and her family was too much work for the company.
We know that individual branches may be run by kind, helpful, efficient people who go the extra mile. There are some lovely people working for corporate funeral directors. But even the smallest personal touches can’t be guaranteed, especially not with staff shortages and branch closures and plunging company profits. Corners must be cut, targets met, time management prioritized.
This is why we only ever recommend independent funeral directors.
We believe they are far more able to respond to individual needs and wishes, to be flexible and creative and to work with each client to create a funeral that is right for them. Mostly small companies, who can be flexible even on the smallest of detail. And it’s often these small details that are the most important, and the ones that do make the funeral unique.
The sort of funeral directors where nothing being too much trouble is how it really works.
Article by Fran Hall
The Good Funeral Guide – www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk
