Coffins are going through a change of image in our culture, though an understandably slow change because everything to do with the subject of death and dying is conservative, whether the funeral industry (though with notable exceptions) or our society…you’re likely to be in a group of one if you ask people at a party if they’ve thought about their coffin recently.

Risking, then, online isolation, let me point to the popularity of the display of Ghanaian and English ‘designer’ coffins at January’s South Bank exhibition on death, and also to the growing trend for decorating coffins of loved ones with bespoke designs, graffiti, illustrations, words of affection and humour, even glued on newspaper cuttings and photographs of footballers and pin ups.

I’m all for this trend as it will make people think about the choice of coffin, rather than nod through what the funeral director suggests as the price of the coffin makes up a large part of the cost of the funeral.

I’m particularly exercised by this issue because the cross on the back of Bernard’s coffin was incongruously facing an almost exclusively atheist group of mourners throughout his humanist funeral.

On a range of costs you have at one end the elaborately built coffins much loved by some Ghanaians and the wonderful Crazy Coffins, to the plain cardboard coffins that will be supplied direct to the family from companies such as Greenfield Creations.

I believe that the involvement of bereaved loved ones, or those facing bereavement, in choosing an appropriate coffin (such an eco-friendly type if the departed was concerned with the environment) and decorating it with personal images and messages, can reduce the feeling of helplessness, anxiety and anguish that death inevitably causes.

Playing a part in personalising the coffin is a way of saying that you accept death and aren’t going to collapse into grief when confronted by it. So, I’ll risk telling my friends and fellow party goers that the next time I’m involved in a funeral I’m going to decorate the coffin.

It might clear the room, but at least I’m doing my bit to change our culture. (Probably why the last time you were invited to a party was five years ago – ed.)

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.’

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.

My Last Song has made quite a hit on the south coast. I was interviewed this morning on BBC Radio Sussex following a piece in Sunday’s Observer in which I was quoted about ‘Beaching‘.

What you ask, is ‘Beaching’ in this context? It is the currently rare practice of families going to the shoreline and, at low tide, digging rows spelling out the name of their loved one and a message (a body makes about 200 cubic inches so spread thinly can fill several letters), and watching as the waves come in to wash the ashes gently into the sea.

The most interesting question the presenter asked was the attitude of the funeral industry to such radical changes in funeral practices. I made the point, as did a following interviewee – a Sussex based humanist officiant – that funeral directors are in business to provide a service to their clients.

I think it’s a point worth emphasising – in the last few years the funeral industry has modernised and most funeral directors want to give a bespoke service as much as offering a limited number of relatively inflexible options.

My Last Song encourages people to plan their own funerals and farewell events – wake and celebratory party – so that they are remembered as they want to be remembered. It has a Lifebox in which funeral wishes and other end of life information such as a copy of the will and letter of wishes can be safely stored until required by close family members and the executor.

Before making the funeral wishes, it is worthwhile to visit local funeral directors to discuss the options and costs, and to work out a pre-paid funeral plan that covers the send off you want. The funeral industry calls this sort of engagement, ‘pre-need’ as opposed to ‘at need’ which is when the grieving family ask for virtually instant funeral arrangements for a recently deceased loved one.

Like everything else, the more time and planning you put into something, the more successful it will be. So it is understandable that most funeral directors welcome ‘pre-need’ clients.

And, for the person considering their own demise, there is the reassurance that they have made the decisions rather than whoever in the grieving family comes forward to take control…not necessarily the person they would want to decide their funeral arrangements.

I’m just not sure about hymns. By that I mean I have launched a website called My Last Song which encourages people to plan the funeral that best matches their beliefs, values and the individual lives they all, we all, lead.

The idea for the website came when I attended two funerals of contemporaries who were music lovers and yet their funerals where what I call  ’cut and paste’ …same hymns, same eulogies, same ritual as everyone else, just the names changed.

But my friends were not ‘everyone else’, and at the very least the music played at their farewells could have reflected their musical tastes and talents.

Like the majority of the UK population, my friends didn’t go to church and had no religious views.  Their funerals nevertheless featured hymns.

People inside the church knew the hymns and there was something cathartic about the mourners – family and friends of very different ages and backgrounds still shocked and grieving – singing together. We were unified in creating a shared emotion, each recognising it was part of a traditional, if anachronistic, way of saying goodbye.

At both wakes, people commented upon the paradox that they enjoyed singing the hymns while accepting they didn’t have any significance to the lives of our friends we were remembering.

Would secular, contemporary songs have had the same affect?

I have also attended humanist funerals when the contemporary secular songs selected gave very specific messages to some, but not all, of the assembled mourners.

The affect on this group was profound – some smiled, some nodded knowingly, some broke down, and most joined in the lyrics.

Others at these funerals, however, were rather left out,  didn’t get ‘the message’ and must have felt less able to say goodbye properly.

Even so, on balance, I believe that choosing hymns because they are an ‘easy option’ and that all age groups and backgrounds will join in (less and less the case in our diverse society where an increasing number of  people will have close friends of different faiths or none) is a less satisfactory choice than selecting music and readings that are true to our beliefs and lifestyles.

At My Last Song we are interested in what others think and have a poll on the type of music you want played at your funeral on our home page.

Please take part.