The  coincidence of ITV exposing the most appalling practices of Gillman’s Funeral Directors, now sadly part of Funeral Services Partnership, and the commercial greed  encouraged by Dignity Funeral Services on the same night as Dead Good Job, BBC2, highlighted some of the very best in the death business, underlines some interesting issues.

It is difficult to comprehend the absolutely disgusting, disrespectful, racist, venal and unprofessional attitudes that characterise Funeral Services Partnership’s approach to handling every aspect of a funeral.

Despite the repeated apologies of Phillip Greenfield, CEO of Funeral Partnerships, nobody will believe his assertion that the practices exposed by an undercover reporter taken on as a casual worker at Gillmans are exceptions.  This description of their business, on their website, says it all: ‘a midlands based consolidator of funeral care providers.’

The appalling practices of dealing with a body, loathsome attitudes towards families, particularly those from ethnic minority communities, lack of training and understaffing is clearly endemic in an organisation that believes, in Greenfield’s words, to be a high street business just like any other, and whose main aim is to increase shareholder value.

So whatever you do, do not purchase a funeral from any company that is part of Funeral Services Partnership.

The same advice must be true of any funeral director that’s part of Dignity. It’s a stock exchange listed company, it wants to make as much profit as possible and it does so by ripping off the client. And clients who are bereaved, in shock and affected by intense grief are very easy to rip off, as Dignity know only too well. They’re good at it, so avoid a Dignity owned funeral director if you believe integrity is more important than profit.

Of the big conglomerates, that leaves the Co-operative Funeralcare Services. However, their funeral directors are now affected by a similar exposure of unprofessional, greedy and disrespectful attitudes broadcast earlier this year. As with Funeral Services Partnership and Dignity, the Co-operative Funeralcare is driven by accountants wanting to increase the bottom line figure, with service to the client coming a rather distant second, despite of course, statements to the contrary from their managing director. This blog shows their lack of professionalism.

Contrast this with the excellent standards shown by the funeral directors taking part in Dead Good Job. Of course, they knew a camera crew were following them around, but what is more germane is the attitudes of those running their independent funeral service companies such as Paul Sinclair of Motorcyle Funerals, Carl Marlow of Go As You Please and Gulam Mabud Taslim and granddaughter Moona Taslim-Saif who run the family Muslim funeral company, Haji Taslim in London’s east end.

Of course they run commercial businesses, but their shared ethos is to provide a good service which is based on a sympathetic understanding of giving what their clients want and can afford.  Indeed what was interesting was the community role played in particular by Haji Taslim, their community being the Muslims of Whitechapel and environs.

There needs to be a re-evaluation of what we expect a funeral to be and how it’s delivered. One increasingly attractive option is for a community funeral in which various members of a community, however that is defined, collaborate to deliver the care, the expertise, the mourners, the officiant and pooled funds to give a member of that community a good funeral.

That’s at the personal not for profit end of a spectrum at which the other end squat the disgusting, venal ‘profit is everything’ companies described above.

Somewhere closer to where we should be looking short term are the small, independent funeral directors not yet purchased by the Co-op, Dignity or utterly wretched Funeral Services Partnership. These independents deserve our support.

Sun Life Direct are to be congratulated on their annual Cost of Dying Report. It’s a comprehensive and helpful piece of research.
They have just published the ninth which shows that the basic cost of a funeral has risen by 6.2 per cent from £3091 in 2011 to £3284 in 2012; a 71 per cent increase since 2004.
Burial costs represent the largest increase (9.6 per cent) while cremation costs (6.6 per cent) and funeral directors’ costs (5.3 per cent) also rose significantly.
Eddie Harris, jazz sax player, wrote a song entitled I Need Some Money in which he said: ‘With the cost of living today, you can’t afford to die.’ The report bares this out: 17 per cent struggled with funeral costs and had to resort to serious measures to meet the shortfall with 20 per cent paying by credit card, 10 per cent borrowing the money, and nine per cent selling belongings.
Despite this, people are spending seven per cent more on memorials, flowers, and limousines.
The financial problems caused by the rising costs and growing inability to pay means the government’s Social Fund Funeral Payment Scheme, designed to contribute to the cost of funerals for the most vulnerable in society, is struggling to meet demand.
And yet, according to the report, 27 per cent have not thought about how they will pay for their funeral.
Little wonder then that Simon Cox of Sun Life Direct commented, “We must encourage people to look ahead and start planning in advance. There are suitable options for people to take financial responsibility for their own funerals.”
Those options, not surprisingly, are Sun Life financial products, and why not as Sun Life is a reputable company with a good reputation for services such as pre-paid funeral plans.  Cox’s foreword to the report should be read carefully as it is a most considered and well argued piece.
My Last Song has run a survey over the past few months asking visitors if they would consider planning their own funeral or leave it to loved ones. Out of the 500 or so who have replied, 84 per cent said they would consider it, not surprising as they were visitors to a site that encourages and assists them to plan their or their loved ones’ funerals.
If they looked at some of the advice we give, they could find significant ways of reducing the funeral costs.
These include buying the coffin direct from the manufacturer; reducing the amount of service and time provided by the funeral director; cutting back on flowers; refusing to be embalmed and planning more diligently things like transport and the catering at the gathering.
To help people be better informed and therefore more likely to save money, and indeed get a better funeral, we have provided a funeral planning checklist of decisions that need to be taken (or not) with the funeral director.
Costs will only come down if a radical new approach to funerals is adopted, starting with addressing one’s mortality and ending with a detailed plan for the send off that gives the best value for money and the best farewell ceremony.
There are signs that things are changing…the recent Joy Of Death weekend was well attended; the BBC2 programme Dead Good Job features the funeral industry and the Dying Matters coalition continues to grow and give excellent advice.
However, we are unlikely to see major changes for some time yet…a funeral is still a panic purchase for most people, and too many funeral directors know that such customers are unlikely to say no to the expensive options put before them.
There are honourable exceptions, those driven more by principle and tradition than bottom line targets. My Last Song would like to hear from them so we can bring them to the attention of our visitors.

This is an edited contribution by Kwame Twumasi-Fofie to My Last Song which shows that not all Ghanaians are happy with the growing trend for expensive and party-style funerals in Ghana. 

Among Ghanaians in general, and the Akan people in particular, one event that brings us together more than any other is bereavement. 

In rural Ghana where even now birthday and wedding celebrations are virtually unknown, funerals have always been a significant feature of our social life. However, as funerals are all about mourning rather than partying, I believe that we in Ghana have lost its meaning, replacing it with commercialisation and exhibitionism.    

Until quite recently, one significant aspect of Akan tradition was that mourning and feasting never went together. Today, however, when you attend a funeral you may be forgiven for thinking that it’s a big party with huge amounts of food on offer.

Video coverage has also become a familiar item on a funeral budget, which given the cost in what is still a relatively poor economy, makes little sense. 

Another well documented fashionable trend is the use of expensive coffins. They are now so costly that people are now deliberately destroying them after depositing them in the grave so they won’t be stolen!  

Until very recently, bereaved family members only wore rubber sandals on their feet as it was considered inappropriate to be mourning while in expensive clothes. These days, however, ladies’ funeral clothing in particular is more suitable as party outfits. 

It is now common for bodies to be kept in the mortuary for six months or longer to enable dilapidated homes to be renovated or sometimes new ones built before the burial.  

Previously the body would be buried as soon as possible and the funeral held at a later date.  Now dead bodies stay in the mortuary for as long as it takes people to raise funds for a ‘grand funeral’.  

The high cost of funerals is mainly due to our brothers and sisters living outside the country.  Most of them are usually constrained from visiting home as regularly as they want due to their limited finances.  Yet in their attempt to impress some spend lavishly on funerals with borrowed money which on their return, they try to recoup by organising parties under the guise of funerals. 

And the irony is that we do not really care much about the final resting place of the dead.  Cemeteries in Ghana are often neglected, with weeds growing among the graves. 

It would be better if the huge sums of money spent on funerals could be used to improve the final resting place of our loved ones.  

It’s time our traditional rulers, politicians and religious leaders waged war against expensive funerals because it is destroying our society.

Saturday’s Radio Four Today programme included a piece about the shortage of burial land in our cities, citing the example of south east London where cemeteries, including the wonderful but scandalously neglected  Nunhead cemetery, have little or no space.

Today presenter Evan Davies suggested to Dr Julie Rugg who chairs the cemetery research group at the University of York that natural burial grounds offered the solution as they had enough capacity, were outside built up areas and were environmentally friendly.

Dr Rugg replied that natural burial grounds were difficult and expensive to reach particularly for older relatives.  She had come across people in London who needed to use five buses to visit the graves of their loved ones situated in these often remote locations.

She has a point, although such issues haven’t stopped the 30 per cent year on year rise in the number of people being buried in natural woodland sites.

Rosie Inman-Cook, who runs the Association of Natural Burial Grounds, believes the 240 natural burial grounds in the UK “should meet the demand for the foreseeable future.”

Even so, we should take seriously Dr Rugg’s opinion. While from the viewpoint of the reasonably fit and affluent, natural burial has many environmental advantages, to a less well off old person getting to a woodland burial to attend the interment and thereafter visiting the location, presents real disadvantages.

Dr Rugg’s suggested solution was the reuse of the space already taken by a body in our urban cemeteries after it had been there for about 100 years.

While I can see the sense of this, my main worry is the loss of the wonderful gravestones that are such a pleasure when walking in the impressive civic graveyards that our Victorian forebears situated in what was then the outer areas of our towns and cities.

I also think people will not want to bury their loved ones in a space that was previously occupied by an earlier grave.

It seems to me that our age will see its dead being put in fields and woods where they enhance the environment and where there is less pressure on space.

This will present problems, but these can be overcome if families and friends help those more disadvantaged to get to natural burial sites. Maybe that is something that the Big Society can address.

A poll carried out by My Last Song has shown a potentially huge demand for woodland burials in the years ahead.

The poll asked visitors to the website to choose what they wanted to happen to their bodies when they died.  Woodland burial received 35 per cent of the votes with cremation second, receiving 30 per cent. The poll took place in September and there were 205 votes.

Currently 74 per cent of funerals are cremations with woodland burials accounting for six per cent.

Rosie Inman-Cook who runs the Association of Natural Burial Grounds says the poll confirms the rapid rise in the popularity of woodland burials.

“While it will be many years before 35 per cent of funerals are woodland burials, natural burial sites are experiencing a 30 per cent year on year increase in the number of people being buried in their sites.

“The increased demand is reflected by the increase in natural burial sites. The first natural burial site opened in Cumbria in 1993. The number today is almost 240.

“This should meet the demand for the foreseeable future.”

Environmentalists will be pleased with the support the poll shows for eco-friendly funerals and the decrease in those wanting to be cremated.

Julia Hailes, leading environmentalist and author of The New Green Consumer Guide, is not enthusiastic about cremation.

“Burning our dead – along with their coffins – not only creates toxic pollution but has significant impact on climate change too.  The energy consumed in cremating one body is the equivalent to 23 litres of oil.  I’d like a shallow burial in a well run woodland site, so that my body turns to nutrients as fast as possible”

The poll also gave the option of cemetery or church burial using eco-friendly coffins which 11 per cent voted for. Put the two together and 46 per cent of people want their funerals to be environmentally friendly.

These results demonstrate that when people consider their own funerals they are more likely to consider the environmental impact.

But the demand for woodland burials will not be as great as the survey suggests because most people don’t plan their own funeral arrangements. As a consequence, when they die their families are likely to opt for the cheapest or most conventional funeral – cremation.

And that’s why many people attracted by the idea of a woodland burial because it is eco-friendly will probably end up cremated, a  paradox that highlights the importance of planning the funeral you want and ensuring your funeral wishes are known.

It is why we encourage people to discuss, write and store their funeral wishes within a safe Lifebox which their closest family can access when they die and give them the funeral they want.

Ten per cent of people who voted chose to leave the funeral arrangements to their families.  For those of us who’ve witnessed the distress, division and panic when a grieving and shocked family is left to make decisions about the type and cost of a funeral, the ‘I don’t care’ approach is callous.

There’s no excuse for thinking that your ending is someone else’s responsibility.

The new(ish) My Last Song poll asks people to vote on choices of what they want to happen to their bodies when they die.

The choices are Burial; Cremation; Eco-friendly church or cemetery burial (which means eco-friendly coffin and charity donations in lieu of funeral flowers); Woodland burial; Used for medical research and Leave it to my family to decide.

So far 15 per cent have chosen the last option. That is to say, they don’t want to take any responsiblity, they are happy to leave it to their families.

Well, one thing is certain, families won’t be happy to have to deal with all the issues that arise when a loved one dies. For when you are numb with shock, when you are grieving and when you are trying to come to terms with the loss, you are at your lowest.

And to have to make difficult decisions such as the choice of funeral arrangements and looking for all the important details of the life that has just ended so that probate can be sorted out quickly adds significantly to the stress and anguish.

Why would you want to leave a mess for your loved ones to sort out when, with a bit of planning ahead, you can ensure that most of the issues are dealt with, and moreover, on your terms?

So if you are environmentally aware, you can plan for your own ‘green funeral’. If you have no religious convictions, you can have a secular funeral. If you want your life to be remembered by certain pieces of music, you can state what these are.

Similarly, you can ensure your estate is passed to whoever you want to benefit by making and updating your will and letter of wishes. You can list all the details which your executors and close family members will need in the days and weeks following your demise.

If you do this, your loved ones will not just be relieved, they will be extremely grateful you had the foresight and good sense to sort out your end of life affairs while you were able.  They will think better of you, and their pain and stress will be lessened.

The Lifebox within My Last Song has been created to make this process as easy as possible. There are sections for organising the will, writing the letter of wishes, planning the funeral arrangements and listing all the necessary details that need to be known.

The Lifebox also has other sections that enable the family, now and in the future, to have an accurate insight into the departed person’s life and times.

So, if you are thinking to choose the ‘Leave it to my family to decide’ option in the My Last Song poll, think again. To leave it to your family to sort out your affairs just after you have died is a callous and even cruel decision which will make life even more difficult for your loved ones.

With the My Last Song Lifebox to guide you easily through the process of putting your own affairs in order, there’s no excuse for making your loved ones’s lives even more difficult…and not having the ending that you want to be remembered by.

Well, I have to say how pleased I am with the publicity gained by the press release I wrote which gave the results and assessment of the first My Last Song poll.
It was about funeral music choices. The fact that the release included some pop song titles meant the Mirror covered it.
And the Telegraph stressed the demise of hymns, which is the more interesting point. The Telegraph’s website reprinted the press release virtually verbatim, for which I’m grateful.
The second poll, which went up on the site yesterday, is on funeral choices: burial, cremation, eco-friendly options, donating the body to medical research or leaving it up to your family.
It’s too early to spot any trends, though after a dozen or so votes cremation is ahead followed, I’m annoyed to relate, by leaving it to the family to decide.
My hope is that donating the body to medical research comes first, followed by the eco-friendly options as these will get journalists more interested than cremation and burial which isn’t news.
But, should you feel like going on to the home page of My Last Song and clicking on the Poll in the right hand column, don’t let me influence your vote, or that of the other people you will, I hope, pass this news on to. (Don’t end sentence with a preposition – ed).