This is a gloomy time of year. It gets dark in the afternoon and the weather has been a series of blustering rainstorms. It is also sad because the winter has higher mortality. So it was for my friend Ian Stevenson, who died a couple of weeks ago. I had not known him long, but in that short time we became firm friends. His last gig, however, did give me food for thought.
The funeral business
Like everything else in Britain today, the funeral business is not exempt from commodifying the business of dying. The phenomenon of ‘drip pricing’ has been an industry standard for years. Those given the responsibility for making funeral arrangements are subject to financial pressures to ensure a ‘good send-off’.
Yet, in truth, many funerals make grieving even more miserable, with conveyor belt funeral services at the ‘Crem’ and add-ons in terms of coffin specification, flowers, funeral cars etc. Of course, if you start hiring pipers, horse-drawn hearses and additional pallbearers, the cost really starts to rocket.
Cost of dying
To add to all the other crises that ‘broken Britain’ is experiencing, there is now a cost of dying crisis. The media is publishing stories of families going into debt, as even a basic funeral now exceeds £4,000, and maybe more in some areas of the country. There is an increase in ‘public health’ funerals, formerly known as pauper’s funerals, funded by the local authority for those without means or living relatives. The practice of direct cremations, where there is no service, religious or otherwise, has grown from 3% of all funerals in 2019 to 20% in 2023.
The cost of dying has increased well above the rate of inflation in the last 20 years (126% as opposed to a cost of living increase of 72%) and, as the boomer generation comes to the despatch part of the hatch, match, and despatch cycle of life, there will be complaints raised about funeral costs, as there have been about the NHS and Adult Social Care. I am not sure the funeral industry is ready to respond.
Secular rites
Britain has become a secular nation, with only limited adherence to religious belief, so what might have appeared shocking 20 years ago is fast becoming a new normal. This is not true of all of the communities of Britain, where traditional belief systems still hold sway, but it remains to be seen if, even there, traditional funerary rites continue in an unchanged way.
Ian chose to combine a secular memorial with a wake, as part of a celebration of his life. This is perhaps appropriate for older persons, but other more solemn means might be chosen to remember the deaths of young persons, or for those who died in tragic circumstances. There is no right or wrong way to conduct a funeral: it has to be a combination of the wishes of the deceased and of those organising the funeral.
Ian had lots of friends, so his wake had to be held in larger premises, but Sunlife is suggesting ways of containing costs (as well as quietly punting its insurance products) and they are worth considering.
Plan ahead
The main thing is to plan ahead. As John Maynard Keynes once said “In the long run we are all dead,” which referred to taking action now and not waiting for something to turn up. What does this mean? First, tell your nearest and dearest how your final appearance should take place. Write it down and make sure it is both realistic and, where possible, fully funded.
Cut out the unnecessary and concentrate on the main items. Most of all, make it easy for those carrying out your wishes to do so.
Ian was not old by today’s standards, but his last appearance met his wishes and gave those left behind a way to remember him with affection and to recall all his many kindnesses.
When it’s my time, it is the way I would want to make my departure: perhaps not in a large way like Ian’s but, nevertheless, with minimal formality and as a celebration of a life, hopefully well lived.
In the meantime, however, Ian showed that life can be lived with kindness and happiness, even within a world where evil never rests.
