I’ve got a lot of time for Poppy Mardell, who runs Poppy’s Funerals: The Modern Funeral Company.

Her business is recommended by the Good Funeral Guide and the Natural Death Centre and they don’t give out their recommendations lightly.

Poppy wrote a particularly interesting piece in Huffington Post, Funerals: Why Do We Spend So Much? She answered the question in these words:

“The reason we blow money on funerals… is a mixture of the unstoppable pain we feel after a death, mixed with our complete inexperience of arranging a funeral, with a drop of terror at finding ourselves in an undertaker’s shop decked out in the style of Oliver Twist. We will go along with anything they suggest. Which is insane. Because whilst undertakers are often lovely people…they are running a business and they need to pay for the costs of the fleet of hearses, the chapels of rest, the embalmer’s salary. So they’re going to encourage you to buy the whole package.”

She is absolutely right, and it’s been clear to me for a long time that people pay too much for funerals because they are uninformed customers making what is usually a panic purchase.

There is also another reason, and that is the family dynamics, or psychology. Which family member is going to say: “Do we really need to spend so much on mother’s funeral?” Who would risk the recrimination of wanting to save money on the funeral, or the shame of the implicit lack of money to pay for it?

My Last Song was created to inform people of the choices they had, to encourage people to plan ahead, thereby turning our visitors into informed customers of the funeral trade and able to make a more rational rather than panic purchase.

We also knew of the problems of ensuring that funeral wishes – let’s say wanting a green funeral, or a humanist celebration of life, or having a message read or played to the gathering –  were recorded and fulfilled.

That’s why we spent a lot of time, and money, creating a digital Lifebox in which funeral wishes can be stored securely, available only to close family members. The Lifebox does more than store your funeral wishes, it helps you record everythin that was important about your life that you want future generations to know about you…a sort of digital immortality.

Use your Lifebox properly and not only will your funeral be remembered for the right reasons, but your life as well. It’s the least you can do for your family.

There’s a lot happening in the normally quiet death and dying space.  Much of this activity is due to the London Southbank Centre’s courageous decision to put on a week’s events centred on death, in an attempt to reduce society’s reluctance to face mortality.

Part of this will be Sandi Toksvig’s memorial lecture, which she trails with her trademark endearing and engaging wit here.

I’m also looking forward to Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs event, as it will look at the top funeral songs and what they tell us us about our attitudes to departing this world. Will he, I wonder, have gone through the 130 or so lists of farewell songs sent in by visitors to My Last Song?

The Natural Burial Ground’s funeral survey results have also been released, and have some interesting if rather partial findings. The survey has clearly and unsurprisingly been answered mainly by those in or close to the funeral business. What we liked about the results was the large percentages of people who go online to get information about funerals and who have written down or told relatives of their funeral wishes.

Sadly as these wishes are often misplaced or disregarded, such admirable intentions are a waste of time. Which is why people should store their funeral wishes and the vital information required by close loved ones immediately after the death in their own Lifebox.

High on the news agenda today was the story that data from the Office for National Statistics showed that dehydration or malnutrition was linked to 25 deaths every week last year. This is the shocking and depressing counterpoint to the admirable efforts others are making, often out of benevolent self interest, to encourage a change in how the British in particular look at death.

Depressingly it is still true that the vast majority of people don’t think about death and don’t talk about death until it is literally too late. And so the chances of having a good death are still remote as we pointed out earlier, with almost 70 per cent of people dying in hospitals or hospices even though over two thirds say they want to die at home.

My Last Song has supported the case for the terminally ill and the ailing elderly to have their own personal death plans, rather as mums-to-be have birth plans. This way the issues surrounding the end of life can be addressed in as calm a way as possible, with the involvement of loved ones, medical professionals and if appropriate, ministers of religion or other comforters.

After some research we created a holistic death plan template which covers emotional, physical, medical, practical and spiritual issues to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

Funeral wishes, death plans and the raising of the public’s consciousness about death and dying are pointing in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go.

The review into Palliative Care, led by the chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Thomas Hughes-Hallett, has highlighted the fact that very many dying people don’t have the end of life experience they want.

Instead of a ‘good death’ with their loved ones by them, their emotional, physical and spiritual needs being met, they will be taken to a hospital where, quite often, a lonely, frightening and upsetting death awaits them.

My Last Song has produced an innovative and holistic ‘Death Plan’ template to encourage discussion about a person’s last days so that they have a ‘good death’.  The areas covered in the plan include medical treatment, physical comfort, emotional and spiritual needs and ways in which stress and fear can be reduced.

The questions are designed to involve the patient’s doctor, close family and friends and even professional advisers so that the person whose life is ending has no concerns about issues, such as their will or who looks after their pets, as the plan enables these topics to be addressed.

At the very least, death plans such as this enable death and dying to be talked about in an calm, unemotional and rational way. All too often talk of death is put off as it is too upsetting or awkward until it is too late.

At best, it means that the patient and loved ones are in control of the end of life experience, and the death is as comfortable, comforting and reassuring as possible.

The My Last Song death plan is easy to fill out, it can be edited at any time and stored securely in the Lifebox, along with all the other end of life information such as funeral wishes that close family members and the executor will need.

A close friend of mine questioned the future of My Last Song.

“Why,” he asked, “would anyone want to visit a website that makes you think about deaths and funerals?”

“Because if you don’t think about it until it’s too late, it really is too late,” I answered.  ”Death is inevitable so plan for it in advance. My Last Song helps and supports people to plan so that things are better when the dreadful time comes.”

How so?  If your loved ones don’t have the information needed for a death certificate, how are they going to get it when you’re dead?

If family members don’t know your funeral wishes, how can they avoid the stress of wondering what you would have wanted? Some families tear themselves apart when arguing over the type – and cost – of the funeral.

Planning a funeral in advance can save a lot of money. You can take out an inflation proofed funeral plan, or you can think about what part of the arrangements you really need, which can be done by the family, and where costs can be reduced.

And, planned properly, the funeral can be a positive, celebratory and unique event that becomes a treasured memory. Unfortunately, all too often, funerals are rushed, inappropriate services that don’t match the lifestyle or views of the departed. In many ways a traditional funeral is a Victorian religious ritual completely out of place in the 21^st century.

You may even see the benefits of planning a farewell event before the death, so that family, friends, ex-colleagues, neighbours old and new can get together for a party at which you are the centre of attraction, giving your final messages.

Or you can ensure the reception is the sort of event you want to be remembered by…music, dancing, speeches, jokes, great food and drink.

It couldn’t be easier to organise. All the information is available on the website, and then you store in your Lifebox your wishes, the music you want played, the ceremony you want…as well as the other personal details your next of kin and executors will need. Simple…and crucial.

We only have one life, and only one death. My Last Song can’t help to make life memorable, but it can make the ending rather special.

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.’

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.

I’m grateful to longtime friend and songster Gordon Griffiths for bringing these contrasting funerals to my attention.

From the Croydon Advertiser 13 August, 2010:

“It is always very sad when no-body attends a funeral,” said a spokesman for Rowland Brothers, undertakers.

“In this case, the 43 year-old man from Addiscombe who we buried on Monday had changed his name by deed poll to Luke Skywalker.

“The case was passed to us by Croydon Council, and we attempted to contact his family and friends.  But he didn’t seem to have any close friends locally, and because the deed poll office are not allowed to give out a person’s former name or personal details, we couldn’t track down his next of kin or relations. We did our best, but the result was a tragically lonely funeral for Luke Skywalker.”

From the Romsey Advertiser’s website 16 September, 2010:

Funeral was a celebration of Jane’s spirit

“Jane Scoones’ coffin was carried out of East Tytherley church to the sound of Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum and a huge round of applause from the 400 people who attended her funeral.

“It was exactly how Jane had planned her final exit and was the perfect conclusion to a service that was a celebration of her remarkable life, filled with heart-felt tributes from family and friends, including Precious Moments, a song that was written for her by her husband, Rob and sung by her daughter, Caroline.

“Those attending Friday’s funeral were simply asked to remember Jane with happiness rather than tears and sadness and to think of the joy she brought to life rather than the tragedy of her loss.

“Jane’s battle with cancer ended on August 28, at the age of 55.”

Jane Sconnes had the funeral she wanted. She planned it meticulously. She didn’t want tears, she wanted happiness. She wanted people to look back on the good things she had done in her life.

I think that there are thousands of people out there who’s lives are also special…indeed, aren’t all our lives special. And our end of life event should also be special. By being unique, the funeral is a much more satisfying and comforting event for the loved ones, for they will feel more positive.

Jane’s approach to her funeral and the event itself  is a validation of the My Last Song purpose. A good life deserves a good ending!

And if people use My Last Song to plan the ending they (or their loved ones) deserve, and keep those plans safe in their Lifebox, then so much the better.

My Last Song has signed up to Race Online 2012, the Government backed initiative to get as much of the adult population of the UK online by the end of 2012 as possible.

One of the target groups is older people, and so My Last Song was welcomed as a Race Online partner organisation because the website will encourage older people to be more computer literate and able to benefit from going online for information, for company, for support and for greater independence.

The problem is reaching those older people who have very low computer skills or don’t have access to a computer and therefore won’t have the opportunity to go online.

To solve this problem, I have come up with a proposed intergenerational communication initiative.  It is focussed on the benefits offered by the Lifebox within My Last Song to older people to whom it is an area to store their funeral wishes, letters of wishes and other details required by their executors and close family members when they die or are terminally ill.

The Lifebox also encourages people to store their memories, their life stories, their achievements, details of their friends and families, their hobbies and their images so that future generations have an accurate insight of their life and times.

This is a valuable way of recording family history which otherwise is likely to be lost.

Very few families these days sit down around the dinner table or in front of the fire and listen to older members relate the details and achievements of their lives and the lives of their older relatives.

So, to take the place of this intergenerational passing down of family history, I am proposing a scheme whereby children between six and 12 nominate an older member or members of their family who aren’t computer competent or haven’t got access to their own computers who they will coach and encourage to fill their Lifeboxes.

In the process, they will learn about the life and times of the older family members, and also know where this information is stored so it can be accessed by future generations.

I will be putting more substance on the proposal and then contact the Department for Education in an attempt to get this off the ground.

It will undoubtedly be supported by Race Online 2012. However, the kind of backing that would be more useful is that of a retailer or supplier of PCs.  So, if the likes of Currys, Comet, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, IBM, HP stumble across this blog and the proposal sounds interesting, please get in contact.

My efforts at getting a worthwhile intergenerational communications initiative off the ground will be chronicled with, I hope, an outcome that has benefits for several thousand older people, their young family members, future social historians, the suppliers of PCs and, of course, My Last Song.