The Brighton Argus covered the story of a local church funeral at which a mobile phone went off…and the ringtone was ‘Staying Alive’, the Bee Gee’s hit.

The most interesting part of this rather amusing story is the comments on the paper’s website. Most contributors thought this was funny and many suggested suitable secular songs which they wanted for their funerals.

Earlier this month, on the west coast of the US rather than the south coast of the UK, a ‘pop culture’ journalist posted a blog on the songs he wanted played at his funeral.

At the time of writing, 105 comments had been posted with the most diverse, quirky, in some case shocking, selections of songs. And these have been ‘liked’ (and occasionally ‘disliked’) often by ten or more people.

And in my email inbox today somebody asked how they could contribute the five songs they wanted to be remembered by. When this selection comes through it will be the 74^th contribution.

Google ‘funeral songs’ and you’ll find pages of websites with lists of suggested tracks, though with the same ten or so tracks often appearing.

My Last Song appears on page 2, which we hope to improve on, but you get my drift…this interest in personal choices of music to mark your ending is growing in popularity.  I’m frequently interviewed on local radio stations to discuss ‘funeral music’ presumably because the editors and presenters know funeral songs interest their audiences.

What does this prove? I rather agree with Charles Cowling, author of the Good Funeral Guide, who believes that the baby boomer generation are now addressing their mortality and are redefining death culture as they redefined youth culture in the 1960s.

Not for them the dreary, dull and depressing traditional funerals with a couple of Victorian songs expressing religious sentiments when they have few if any religious beliefs.

No, increasingly this group want to be remembered by a positive, celebratory and personal ceremony. All Things Bright and Beautiful is out, What A Wonderful World is in.

So I think the future is looking bright for the increasing number of companies, some of them joined in a loose alliance known as the Farewell Innovators, positioned to give this market what it needs, not what rather traditional and inflexible funeral directors, think is right for it.

It’s great news that two UK based websites My Last Song and The Good Funeral Guide have been selected as the world’s top funeral websites by US guru Brian Burkhardt, also known as ‘YourFuneralGuy’.

I must say I was surprised when Google Alerts, true to its name, alerted me to the fact that My Last Song was the number one funeral website slot.

In the past two years there’s been a big increase in the number of funeral and bereavement websites and blogs, particularly in the US, so for My Last Song to be chosen as the best funeral website in the world by an American funeral expert is quite an honour.

Second placed website, The Good Funeral Guide, was started in 2009 by Charles Cowling, author of the Guide.

Charles, who is at the centre of the new-era funeral blogging and tweeting community, confirms the growing trend for online funeral information. “There’s a lot of global ideas-swapping around the topic of evolving funeral customs, especially in the English speaking world.”

It seems likely that the growing interest in end of life websites is because the baby boomer generation is now facing their mortality. As Charles puts it: “These are the people who reinvented youth culture. Just watch them reinvent death culture.”

This generation will want their funerals to reflect their views and lifestyles instead of the often dreary traditional event, built around a religious ritual out of place in an increasingly secular 21st century.

Another reason for the increased use of funeral planning and funeral information websites is the desire to save money.

Funeral costs are rising fast, and the customer is often getting a bad deal because the funeral industry knows they are dealing with people unable or unwilling to discuss money when organising a loved one’s funeral.

As Charles Cowling says, “There are many ways of saving money when planning a funeral and negotiating with the funeral directors. The Good Funeral Guide and My Last Song have lots of advice on how to save money and also have a better, more appropriate funeral.”

A number of organisations wanting to change how funerals are handled have formed a loose alliance called the Farewell Innovators. These include a photographer specialising in funeral photography and a company producing bespoke memorial books of photographs.

Also involved are those who offer eco-friendly funerals and a more personal, often more celebratory approach, to the final goodbye.

All use the new technology so I hope that next year, these new companies feature in lists of the top websites.

Earlier this week I visited one of the big funeral companies to discuss a possible advertising deal on My Last Song.

The funeral planning advice articles on the website are increasingly popular and thus valuable to a company with a lot of funeral businesses around the country.

The discussion got off to a good start and my proposal seemed to be acceptable.

And then the managing director showed me the print off of the article called Cutting Funeral Costs.

“If we advertise on your website you’ll have to take off this page,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Because it means my companies won’t be making as much money. I don’t want families to pay less for a funeral.”

In fairness, he said that he didn’t have targets for his funeral businesses and his funeral directors were told not to force up the price the families wanted to pay.

He said advice on costs was discussed with the family, to ensure that “mum had the funeral they would want her to have…”

He didn’t think visitors to My Last Song needed to know how they could reduce the costs of the funeral so the deal would only be done if the advice was removed.

I thanked him for seeing me and caught the next train back to London.

The company, which has a large market share, should be aware that the industry will change radically in the next few years.  Customers will be better informed and new businesses will challenge the established way of selling funeral services.

Take coffins. Eco-friendly materials are becoming increasingly popular, and while funeral directors are making these choices available, companies such as Greenfield Creations in Essex and The Coffin Company soon to launch in the north east, sell direct to customers wanting cheaper and more sustainable coffins.

And flowers. Funeral flowers are extremely expensive and also bad for the environment as they require heat and artificial light. Yes, the tradition of marking a death with flowers goes back thousands of years but that doesn’t mean a family in the 21st century shouldn’t want to save on this part of the funeral package, or instead donate the money to a good cause.

I appreciate the point made by the managing director that a family ‘at grief’ need a sympathetic service rather than a ‘we can do a great cut price job for your mum’ approach.

But what is unacceptable is his view that the customer should not be given the information to be a more informed client before the ‘at need’ engagement with the funeral director.

Only in a business as ‘traditional’ as the funeral business could such an unfair approach to the customer be defended in 2010.

With more businesses and organisations wanting to change how we deal with death, dying and funerals, this approach won’t last much longer, I hope.

Social networking is a great thing.  Thanks to social networker extrordinaire Charles Cowling, I came across lots of US websites and blogs that occupy the funeral, mourning and end of life space.

I got in touch to bring My Last Song to their attention and before long, YourFuneralGuy, had put My Last Song at the top of the list of funeral websites for 2010, with The Good Funeral Guide, author Charles Cowling, ‘in at number two’.

Someone then commented that My Last Song was the best funeral website in the world because it had the facility for people to put their wishes in the Lifebox for loved ones to fulfil (though I can’t find this comment).

Another US fellow traveller is Gail Rubin, whose Family Plot blog is excellent, as is the Modern Mourner, the website of Shirley Tatum.

Shirley has sent My Last Song her five favourite farewell tracks, and splendid songs for a funeral they are too.

There is no doubting that funeral music is of great interest…many visitors to My Last Song look for funeral hymns, secular funeral music, advice on classical music suitable for funerals and the five farewell tracks that now more than 70 people have contributed.

There is also no doubt that websites that advise people on how to get good value from their funeral director (or funeral  home as they’re called in the US), how to have the most appropriate send off, how to address their final days and then how to come to terms with the loss will get more and more traffic as the populations of the UK and the US get older.

The people within this demographic, 60 onwards, will also be increasingly those who are from the baby boomer generation, defined by the US Census Bureau as born between 1946 and 1964. These are people who will redefine aging and the end of life experience as they redefined youth culture back in the 60′s.

They are internet savvy. They use social media. They get information from websites.  Many will want to leave this world in a style that is unique and celebratory.

In the UK, a number of organisations who cater for this market have grouped together under the title of Farewell Innovators. A Facebook page has been created and a first meeting is being organised.

I would expect a similar informal association to exist, or to be set up fairly soon, in the US, and then for the farewell innovators both sides of the Atlantic to swap notes, opinions and be mutually supportive.

There’s a lot of people out there who need what we are offering them…the understanding that death is part of life, that it should be planned for, that as we are unique in life so our partings should acknowledge and celebrate our individuality, and that our parting, while a sad and mournful experience for our loved ones, should enable them to continue with their lives stronger in the knowledge that we have had the ending we wished for.

And I hope that includes playing their last songs, music that is meaningful and memorable.

There is a societal change taking place which the Farewell Innovators (My Last Song included) are part of, and which the Dying Matters Coalition is heading.

It is the belated recognition that the baby boomer generation born in the two decades following the end of the second world war is now reaching the latter years of their lives and that their end of life expectations will need to be met.

It’s becoming rather un-PC to call them old, or elderly, not least because they don’t think they are. Indeed, with more people living to 100, those in their 60s and 70s aren’t really old any more.

More acceptable terms are elders, which has a ring of wisdom attached to it, and seniors which connotes greater experience.

Unlike the generations before them, this group – let’s call them superior seniors – will take more control of their end of life experiences. Baby boomers have been criticised for being the ‘me, me, me’ generation who get what they want.  This attitude isn’t going to change as baby boomers become superior seniors.

They will want better health care so they lead longer and healthier lives. They will want to be independent as long as possible, and when looked after will expect a higher standard of service from care providers.

When the end of their lives is approaching, they will want to be involved in the decisions previously taken by family members or their doctors about how much medical intervention they want to receive and where they want to die.

And when they die, they will want their lives to be remembered positively and uniquely with a high quality farewell ceremony or service.

Superior seniors will have learned from the end of life experiences of their parents’ generation and not been impressed by poor quality care delivery, hardly reassured by the NHS end of life medical care lottery and disappointed by anonymous, dreary send offs.

We are at a point when the future tense is changing to the present…time is passing, years are being added to the ages of the baby boomers. If not old, they are no longer young.

The farewell innovators are those companies and organisations who want to give this increasingly large market (by 2015 there will be well over ten million people aged 65 or older) a better farewell experience.

Central to this approach is the move towards a ‘good death’, the achieving of which is the purpose of the Dying Matters Coalition. It means the ailing patients, their families and their doctors have to address dying and death openly and positively to make the end of life experience as comfortable as possible. The My Last Song death plan is an holistic approach to organising a comfortable death.

While all this signals the retreat of the pervasive Anglo Saxon death taboo, superior seniors and the farewell innovators who wish to provide services for them should not be complacent.

Death is sad, upsetting, worrying and uncomfortable to discuss. It is often easier to ignore, but if not addressed, superior seniors can hardly complain if the end of life decisions are made by their families or health professionals, not always for the reasons they would have chosen.

As this government puts an inclusive, collaborative and mutually supportive Big Society at the top of its agenda, it must do more to encourage better living standards and the delivery of a ‘good’ death for the increasingly large numbers of superior seniors who will not expect to be left out of the tent.

I was interested in a piece called ‘It’s Your Funeral’ on the Irish Times’ website. An article I wrote on funeral planning in My Last Song is called ‘It’s Your Funeral‘ so if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I’m flattered.

The journalist did a great job in compiling within one piece some of the changes taking place in the Farewell Innovators‘ space in Ireland.

It gives details of a humanist funeral celebrant, fairly rare I would have thought in Ireland, and also covers the country’s first natural burial ground.

Most importantly the article states:  ’The best way to ensure you get the funeral you want is to make your wishes known.’

Here it stands four square with the My Last Song approach.  We believe that not only should you want your funeral to be appropriate to your lifestyle and personality, but you should make sure your funeral wishes are known.

Which is why My Last Song provides visitors with a Lifebox in which to store their funeral wishes and the funeral arrangement details so that their close family or executor can access them when the Lifebox owners are about to die or have just died.

My congratulations to the journalist who did such a good job in covering all bases – she even gives advance care directives and Enduring Power of Attorney into her piece – and the Irish Times for covering it. She also coins a phrase that might catch on…’deathstyle’, as short hand for making the funeral match the person’s lifestyle and personality.

When will a serious newspaper in Britain focus on the ever growing Funeral Innovators and the growing market we are servicing?

Quite some time, if the Daily Mail night editor has his way. I’ve  written informative pieces for the consumer editor only for him to tell me that while he likes the story, his editor doesn’t want to carry anything to do with death.

He’s doing his readers a disservice. Nobody, not even Daily Mail readers, lives forever.  Indeed Mail readers are closer to realising this than most, and are in danger every day of being frightened to death.

Oh, and the Irish Times journalist ends the piece: ‘Overall if you wish your death to reflect your life, the advice is to plan ahead and make your wishes known.’

Author Sarah Dunant contributed last week’s A Point of View on BBC Radio 4.   As I listened to it, I wondered if she had been reading my blogs or had got hold of a My Last Song press release as her point of view is remarkably, and encouragingly, similar to the thesis first articulated by Charles Cowling and myself earlier this year.

Our view comes from our experiences of officiating (Charles’s experiences, not mine) and attending the rapidly increasing funerals which are unique, personal and positive celebrations of life, and my conviction that it is a sham for a person who had few if any religious beliefs in his or her life to be given a religious funeral at which the readings, prayers and hymns have little or no meaning, either in defining the life being celebrated or to the gathered friends and family.

Where Sarah Dunant’s point of view became most interesting was when she said: “Because having got everything that we wanted in life, baby boomers, more than any other generation, are uniquely qualified to address the biggest taboo of all – death… an increasing number of us want to choose when and how we go.”

When discussing  the baby boomers’ funeral final rite she suggests a generational anthem and thought the Sid Vicious version of My Way was suitable.  I see where she’s coming from but think better advice would have been that we choose the songs that mean the most to us as our last songs.

Which is, of course, why I started My Last Song.

Two other encouraging pieces of news today. The first is that the left of centre think tank DEMOS is about to publish a report entitled How Britain Dies. The other is the announcement that the Government is planning to make it easier to allow people to die where they wish, which is normally at home with their loved ones present rather than in impersonal and often lonely hospital wards.

This reinforces the My Last Song view that the very old and terminally ill should be encouraged to write their own death plans, as this will inevitably mean discussing the issues with their family and health professionals and thus reduce the fear of the unknown  and lessen the taboo that still surrounds the subject of our mortality.

A lot is happening in the little niche that we’re calling Farewell Innovations….if you look at the 10 million or so people now over 65 maybe it’s not so little.

The phrase ‘Farewell innovators’ was, I think, first used by Louise Harris of Sentiment a few days ago.

Having kindly praised My Last Song, she went on to discuss the organisations that had moved into a niche market – that of helping people to deal with death, dying and bereavement.

Talk of  ’gaps in the market’ worries me as I recall an economist commenting on the demise of a specialist car maker whose founder said the company was filling a gap. The economist told journalists, “just because there’s a gap in the market doesn’t mean there’s a market in the gap.”

But a number of factors encourage me to believe that the ‘farewell’ market is there to be serviced. The first is the demographics of the UK.  The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show there are over 10 million people in the UK aged 65 or over.

The second is the type of people these are…the more independent, free thinking baby boomers who are wanting their end of life experience to match their lifestyles and who are, slowly, reducing the taboo around death. They want a personal and honest farewell and are more likely to take charge of the process to get what they want.

It’s how they’ve led their lives, for better or worse, and they’re unlikely to stop just because they have reached old age. I get the impression that many are practicing when organising the funerals of their parents – they don’t want their mothers and fathers dispatched in a traditional and often rather anonymous ritual.

Third is the Government supported Dying Matters Coalition, of which My Last Song is a member.  It is encouraging doctors, palliative care providers and the general public to make ‘living and dying well’ the norm.

So, given the figures, there’s quite a gap in the market for those of us wanting to help people have the endings they want, to be remembered the right way and to be more in control of end of life decisions.

It’s being filled by companies I will name run by remarkably nice and slightly eccentric individuals that I won’t.

Civil Ceremonies, Sentiment, The Good Funeral Guide, Remember Me When I’m Gone, Much Loved, One Life Ceremonies, Heavens Above Fireworks, Lovingly Managed and the Natural Death Centre. Add to this the growing number of innovative funeral directors, humanist celebrants and interfaith ministers who spend a lot of time and trouble ensuring families and friends say a very personal goodbye to a parted loved one, and you can see a movement growing.

I would also add to this group the long established and excellent Dignity in Dying, which as well as campaigning for a change in the law on assisted dying, also encourage people to take out Advance Decisions to refuse treatment and be in control of their end of life medical treatment.

If we are to have a collective title, then I like ‘Farewell Innovators’.

Time is on our side, fellow innovators…it might be a struggle at the moment, but keep going because more and more people will be want what we offer.