You couldn't make it up
You couldn’t make it up. The Express could, perhaps, given its record for libelling people. Here is the essence of their story in today’s paper.
First, the headline: Three Orphans Sell Pets To Pay For Mum’s Funeral.
Got yer pulse racing? It’s right up there on a par with Headless Waiter Found In Topless Bar (New York Post).
The funeral directors insist on having the money upfront. They offered to knock 200 quid off by squeezing the body into a smaller coffin, but the kids refused.
Enough!
What a shame it is that the people who feel duty-bound to spend more than they can afford on a funeral are so often those who can least afford it. No one calls those middle-class, cardboard coffin funerals paupers’ funerals.
Read the whole sorry story here -- if you can bear.
Labels: funeral cost
posted by Charles Cowling at
19:37
8 Comments:
Is it just me, rather than, heaven forbid, the Daily Express, or is there a whiff of something not quite right about this? What savvy funeral director would not fall over themselves to make some kind of a gesture in this situation? How clumsy and insensitive do you have to be? As for "squeezing her into a smaller coffin" for £200 quid less? Come on. Perhaps this is a monumentally crass blunder on behalf of a firm unversed in the power of the modern media, or maybe we are being spun by a hostile, defensive right wing agenda? Hmm.
The FD is quoted thus: "As a funeral provider, we have a duty of care to ensure that clients and potential clients are able to meet the costs associated with a funeral service." Interesting definition of a duty of care.
The Express reported the story cruelly. I suppose they reckoned it belonged to the genre of prole porn or something. It's very good to see that the children's local community has taken this seriously. Peterborough United FC, Perkins Engines and all manner of wellwishers have stumped up the cash.
Charles,
Here in the Colonies (and the other 37 states) we have seen the introduction of "car washes" to earn the money needed to put on a "decent" funeral and burial. Sadly, the "decent" part is often expanded by religious rites and rituals, over the course of two days, at least. When you add it all up, it's far more than a simple service conducted with the deceased or family totally in mind.
Fast food restaurants, read that to mean McDonald's, Jack-In-The-Box, Wendy's, etc., eargerly volunteer their parking lot and water tap.
Times are changing!
I read this article with great interest - because we've seen similar stories in the press in the United States. Not selling your pets on E-bay, but raising money for an "appropriate" funeral. What is appropriate? While this UK funeral didn't seem excessive - it seemed basic to me - I've seen families in the U.S. who have had fundraisers for $20,000 funerals. My first thought - is go cheaper, don't have all the bells and whistles, don't go into debt... But, somewhere along the way families have been convinced that doing right by a loved one is paying more money. Funerals don't have to cost a fortune to be meaningful, but I think many families have been sold a bill of goods of the "imaginary best funeral in the world." My least expensive funerals have often been the most meaningful...
Trouble is with some folk - the equation goes 'amount of money spent = show of worth of person'....this goes for funerals as well as Christmas/birthday presents.....show and bling go hand in hand with the very richest and the very poorest members of society.
Clearly the very richest can afford the bling - and the very poorest can't afford the bling they THINK they need - in order to impress the community as to how much they cared........and the chattering classes in-between dig a hole in a wood/field, themselves... use a cardboard coffin decorated with homemade photos/pictures/flower garlands.....carry it to the hole themselves and have a lovely personal - meaningful time and go home having paid pennies.
Funny world we live in....I personally am for the cheap and home-made. That's why I chatter so much I guess!!!!!
Unfortunately i feel i have to say that my family are also in the same position as the family in the story. Mu uncle died 2 weeks ago and we have been quoted just over 3k for the funeral, but the funeral directors are asking for a 2k deposit before they will start any arrangements.
we have tried 15 different funeral directors and each one wants 2k or more. We do not have that kind of money and my aunt who had been with my uncle for 50 years cannot bare letting him have a paupers funeral. None of the fineral directors seems to want to help, co-op did drop the price to 1500 deposit but we still do not have the money. We have so far managed to raise 300 from selling the kids xbox and play stations but nobody seems to want any of what else we have for sale. It seems the only way we will raise this deposit is by selling ourselves.
My aunt is the oldest of all my nans children, she has buried 10 people in the past 10 years and she never once had this kind of problem, the funeral directors would always let them make the arrangements then pay after the funeral on a payment plan. Now it seems my uncle, who was a good man and always helped everyone, will go unburied until we have saved enough money :o(
If anyone knows of any funeral directors in the wolverhampton area who will do the funeral without the deposit please contact me through my email: me1love2max@msn.com
thanks
As a former funeral director I think it is over looked that funeral directors are not loan companies, they often only ask for a deposit for costs that they offer to PAY out on the bereaved's behalf, fees they are not obliged to pay. If a family arranged the funeral themselves, florists, cemeteries, crematorium etc would request payment straight away, therfore the funeral director is often made the scape goat for third parties. The vast majority of funeral directors are caring individuals, but they are running a business, and as sensitive a businees as it is, it is a business. Could you make a large purchase without paying a deposit?? I think not.
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