Do you know the cost of a funeral?

My late brother stated in his will “no funeral thank you.” There are UK companies who carry out Direct Funerals at a reduced cost. My brothers ashes were later scattered on a beach with a small family gathering off the coast of Vancouver, a place he settled in and loved after serving 12 years in The Royal Navy. You can also leave your remains to medical science which are usually gratefully received by medical students if you so wish.

Beryl – I agree with you ! Die-cardboard box ,dumped in sea a few 100 yards down the road . NO funeral when your dead your dead let cameron try to get money out of me now ! I dont mind discussing death as a believer in re-incarnation we come back to learn more . Its all about spiritual learning , you dont even need to be religious , there is a Supreme Being but a lot of the bible is not true . We are not only here to learn but to help others so that eventually we become a “Universal Being ” you go to school and learn well the same applies to your spirit -as above-so below . For those that say -dead -zero -the END then whats the point ? we would then be no better than a single cell creature that splits in two and reproduces as we do, do you think thats all you are ?

i have made no secret of my wish for the cheapest possible cremation. And at a suitable time a celebration of my life can be held [if desired by others] at a good restaurant.

I investigated it fully when looking into it at my parents deaths. Off-hand I am thinking around £1000 tops. I have not looked into the benefits of being buried in the garden ….. though doing it without official approval might be a problem for my wife .. : )

No problems for us. We have a large garden and we could use the fertiliser. A garden grave must be situated more than 10 metres from standing water, at least 50 metres away from a drinking water source, and be deep enough to dissuade foxes from digging up the dearly and recently departed.

Thanks for that “deadly ” advice Ian.

You’re welcome…

sepulchral tones

Just to put some numbers on this, last year I had to make funeral arrangements for a close relative. It was not an elaborate affair, a fairly simple cremation with a non-religious celebrant and subsequent interment of the ashes in the family grave. The funeral contractors and crematorium charges came to around £5,000. It did involve two firms of funeral contractors and transfer of the body from Norfolk to South London but that probably only represented a small percentage of the costs. On top of the direct funeral expenditure the estate had to meet the considerable costs of correspondence and postage, and other incidental costs.

I am not sure about how competition works in the funeral trade. There seems to have been a considerable increase in the number of funeral contractors in our area over the last ten years but no commensurate rise in the number of deaths. Far from this exerting pressure on prices there seems to be remarkable consistency in prices for the same standard of funeral. However, there are economy-grade packages available from most, if not all, funeral companies. I was pleased to see that Beryl mentioned “direct funerals” as I have been an advocate of this, and basic simple funerals, for over fifty years, but the trend is going in the opposite direction now with ostentatious display being the order of the day in a return to the Victorian way of death with fancy horse-drawn hearses and elaborate services. Similar to modern weddings, these affairs also impose higher than necessary costs on the people attending who are expected to lay out quite a bit on flowers, tributes, dress, travel and accommodation.

A point on garden burials: As I understand it the seller should inform a prospective buyer if a human body is buried in the garden . Not normally a good selling point, and it also complicates visiting the last resting place of the departed if the home is sold. Totes awk.