As millions of mourners around the world watch as Pope Francis is laid to rest, Britain’s best-known funeral director on why we must do bereavement properly
Pallbearers inside the church of Santa Maria Maggiore ahead of Pope’s burial (Image: Daily Mirror)
The funeral of Pope Francis was watched by millions world-wide. It attracted as many viewers as any major sporting event could hope to. It was a solemn and yet majestic occasion as we were all reminded of how important religion is to millions of people. But also how such reverence, order, discipline, tradition and respect are important in a civilised society where some values can still outshine the “I, me, mine” materialist attitude where money and spending power are the new gods for so many.
Can you imagine the Pope, the Queen, Sir Winston Churchill or Lady Diana merely having a memorial service – with no coffin present for us all to say ‘goodbye’ to as part of the funeral service? So can you imagine not saying ‘goodbye’ to your parents, a sibling, partner or, God forbid, your child in that way. However, that is what has been happening increasingly from 2017 onwards as we have convinced ourselves that saving money means we can ditch facing bereavement fully.
Let me acquaint you with the little-known machinations of the funeral industry over recent years. The advent of direct cremation from circa 2017 onwards, linked to pre-paid funeral plans, which had never been regulated by the FCA, caused a ‘gold-rush’ of new entrants into the ‘death’ market – and, while some providers were very honourable people, some weren’t.
Soon the FCA was following in the steps of the CMA down a road towards regulation. However, while the CMA stopped short of a serious regulation of funeral directing, the FCA quickly (and correctly) decided that it had no option but to completely regulate pre-paid funeral plans.
The firms, which were eventually licenced by the FCA and others – including Westerleigh, Memoria, Golden Leaves and Golden Charter – soon saw that they had no option but to advertise heavily to protect their own future in the ‘time of need’ market share against the TV commercial onslaught on the ‘oldies channels’ ITV 3 and ITV 4 by companies selling direct cremations – where there was no local funeral service but a mass produced production line of cremations – perhaps hundreds of miles away from where the deceased had died.
Additionally, while all of this was evolving Covid-19 struck, limiting attendance levels at most crematoria to 30 or even nil at certain municipal crematoria. The combination of this with the sudden onslaught of incessant TV advertising of pre-paid funeral plans, which were being mainly bought by the person whose funeral was being paid for and who did so with the attitude of “you can put me in the wheely bin for all I care”, saw the growth of direction cremation rocket towards 25% of all funerals by 2024 and this will be higher when all living plan holders eventually die.
So, the combination of a serious increase in direction cremation and the CMA’s warnings to the profession have caused funeral price deflation. Is this good for the general public? Well in a price sense yes, but in a service sense and what is good for a bereaved family, no. This is because they have been left with either a big bill for access to an attended service or a much smaller bill for a direct cremation with no service.
To not have a proper funeral service, be it a religious service, a non-religious celebration of life service, or a combination of the two, is inviting problems when coming to terms with bereavement. It is essential to say goodbye properly and face up to what has happened. It is what has happened since mankind started to become civilised.
Should we acknowledge our loved ones’ deaths by going down the pub and having a few beers and some ‘lovely sausage rolls’? Or even go to a church where the glaring absentee will be the coffin? Of course not! However, these TV commercials try to tell the nation otherwise and that a memorial service will suffice.
Therefore, it must be cautioned that they are doing so because national direct cremation operators cannot provide families with local attended funeral services. Hence, they need to convince the nation that such services are not needed or even a good idea.
Funeral director and businessman Howard Hodgson (Image: Courtesy Howard Hodgson)
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So, the public is currently left with the choice of either an expensive traditional funeral where they sit in one big black car and follow another big black car to the crematorium or have an unattended direct cremation instead. This is not only bad for the bereaved family, it is also disastrous news for the funeral director in the long term.
In years gone by, a bereaved family needed transport as fewer families owned cars, and it could only express its love and respect by the type of coffin selected, the number of limousines hired, or the size of floral tributes bought as religious denominations controlled the service. Celebrating a loved one’s life in a funeral service just did not happen.
Today, religious control of funeral services has all but disappeared and civil celebrants have largely replaced priests and vicars in the main Christian religious sects when it comes to officiating at a funeral service. Families really do want to have local-attended funeral services, but not all see the need to, or can afford to, pay for a traditional funeral with a lot of Victorian trappings which they see as wholly unnecessary in today’s world.
I believe that the funeral market is failing much of the public currently in this regard. I believe that every family in the land should have a choice of four types of funeral service: a traditional Victorian funeral service; a prime-time attended service, where everyone collects at the crematorium; a selected time smaller attended committal service only or a direct cremation.
All should be offered by local funeral directors to their client to ensure that bereaved families have these choices and have them locally. This would also give the bereaved four clearly defined price points. I became successful by offering the public the opportunity to choose what they wanted. Those who do this now will follow in my footsteps. Those who do not will fail and will deserve to.
- Howard Hodgson is founder of Memoria and Britain’s most successful funeral director