13. What Is A Direct Cremation, And Can The Family Attend?
Mar 03, 2023Season 1Episode 13
G Seller and Co - Andy Eeley & Joe Clarke-Ferridge
Have you heard of a Direct Cremation, or an Unattended Funeral? This episode discusses what these services really are, and the emotional impact they can have on families. There is a growing number of families that feel they haven’t properly said goodbye to their loved one. You only have one chance to say goodbye and giving your loved one a befitting send off, no matter how simple or unique, has a real impact on readjusting to a new normal without your loved one being a physical presence in your life. Listen or watch now to learn more, enabling you to make a more informed decision.
Have you heard of a Direct Cremation, or an Unattended Funeral? This episode discusses what these services really are, and the emotional impact they can have on families. There is a growing number of families that feel they haven’t properly said goodbye to their loved one. You only have one chance to say goodbye and giving your loved one a befitting send off, no matter how simple or unique, has a real impact on readjusting to a new normal without your loved one being a physical presence in your life. Listen or watch now to learn more, enabling you to make a more informed decision.
Hi. I'm Andy Eeley, a Senior Funeral Director with G Seller Independent Funeral Directors. And we've been serving bereaved families since 1910. I'm sure you are well aware there's lots and lots of different misconceptions, myths, and taboos around the funeral profession and what goes on behind closed doors. So we've decided to put this series of podcasts together and sort of dispel some of those myths and, of course, answer any questions. So if you do have any questions, please, like, share, subscribe and send the questions to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them for you. It genuinely is Our Family Caring For Your Family. Today, I'm joined by my co-host, Joe. How are you, Joe? Thank you. Good. We're going to be talking about an Unattended Cremation. Historically, this was called Direct Cremation. It might be referred to the same thing. Why is that? Yeah, Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) insists that we now refer to this as an Unattended Cremation or an Unattended Funeral. But as you said, it's more commonly known as a Direct Cremation, essentially the simplest way a funeral can be carried out. Yeah. So we've touched on this before in a previous episode. However, on this, we're focusing on that unattended funeral service and what people's perception of it is. So, of course, people think that it's fuss free, it's quick, it's easy, it's cheap. And of course, they don't feel that they need a funeral service to carry on with that grief process. It's difficult, isn't it? Because each person is absolutely entitled to have an opinion as to how they want the funeral to take place. And a Direct Cremation has its part in that. But there are things just to consider aren't there with regards to having a Direct Cremation. A part of that is allowing your own family to grieve cause you know, you sit down, with a lot of people don't you they just say, just put them, put me in the garden, outside in a bin bag. Cardboard box. It's a common thing, people say. But of course, there's an emotional impact to something like that, where if you don't have a funeral service, you're not allowing perhaps your family to grieve in that way. So we're seeing a bit of a knock on effect here, are we? So the unattended cremation piece became popular certainly throughout the COVID Pandemic. It was the only option that we had for in some situations, or a very, very small funeral service with, like, six people being able to attend. But what we're noticing now is that particularly with our Bereavement Care, people are coming back to us because they feel it's kind of a bit of a delayed grieving process I guess. They feel that they haven't had a proper funeral service for their loved one. For me, of course, I think there's a real worry that people opting for an unattended funeral now in the future. It might might have a negative effect on them. What do you think? Yeah, it absolutely could do. I think people who have had a perhaps a Direct Cremation, perhaps during COVID, I know that at the time there was a lot of talk about maybe people having a memorial service at a later date, but inevitably you sort of grieve that microcosm as to when someone passes away. And almost inevitably, of course, people didn't necessarily come back to do something like that. Now, consequently, as you said through our Bereavement Counsellors, we have that we're seeing some of the effects of that. As you say, Direct Cremations have their place. Absolutely right for some people. It's not for me to tell somebody what they should and shouldn't do, but it's certainly worth just thinking about some of the consequences if you do decide and discuss it with your family, just to make sure that they're happy with what those consequences are. I think it's important as well to understand what's usually involved in a Direct or Unattended Cremation. I mean, we at G Seller we do things very differently to perhaps other people. So just my advice, I guess, would be do your homework, make sure you know, there's things such as deceased not being conveyed individually for example. We know there's companies out there, out there that will advertise, put flyers through doors and advertise through various means that do things certainly differently to the way that we perceive that perhaps it should be done. So I think it's quite paramount that the individual is looked after properly and in some instances, there's no washing, dressing, cremated remains can quite simply just be posted back to you. That doesn't feel quite right. No. As you said earlier on, of course, people are conveyed in vans with multiple people all at once. And part of the thing we pride ourselves on is that we always convey people individually from wherever they are. Yeah, absolutely. And that makes no difference if we're looking at a Bespoke service or an Unattended. The individual is still looked after in the same way. I think that's really important. So, like you would with perhaps with due diligence on a more bespoke type of funeral service, it's worth just getting information, make sure the company that you're dealing with, you trust them and how they're looking after both yourself, but also your loved one as well. So from our perspective, how we do things, I mean, we can talk about that for hours, no doubt, but we can absolutely guarantee that the level of care that your loved one receives is exactly the same as whether we're looking at a bespoke service or a different type of service, conveyed individually, as you say, cleaned, washed, dressed, laid to rest. Sensible coffin. And then we still travel in the hearse, don't we? Still use hearse and I think we sort of covered this, didn't we in a previous podcast, we still use the hearse exactly the same with any of a funeral. Still use a compliment a full compliment of men, to go and look after the cremation it's all done properly and as you'd expect a Funeral Director to do this. I had a conversation, actually, earlier with someone who didn't realise that this happened with people that companies would come and convey in sort of multiple people at once and they had no idea that this is how a Direct Cremation could be carried out. I think it's important to say as well that we're local. We use local crematoria. We're not travelling hundreds of miles to a different crematoria, everything's local. And therefore, of course, your loved one is looked after in our premises as well. Absolutely. And Unattended, of course, there's no one there, there's no one to witness it. But from our perspective, hand on heart, I can absolutely tell you that we still convey in on shoulders. Where possible, of course. Where possible, and also where possible if we can play a bit of music, we will do. We still bow at the appropriate moment and we'll allow those curtains to close at the point of committal and then we quite simply step away. So it's simple, unattended, but still dignified. And I think that's the important piece. It is, and I say repeat it again, but I think the important thing to take from this is due diligence with regards to Direct Cremation, as you would with anything else you do in life. Even if someone doesn't necessarily want a funeral service, I'm sure they still want to be looked after with dignity in the way that they certainly want to be so just do a bit of research into it. We certainly look after people exactly the same irregardless, as we said, whether it's Bespoke Service or Direct Cremation, you're going to be looked after at G Seller in exactly the same way, as it should be. Joe, thank you. I think we've covered Unattended Funerals there. All right, brilliant. Thank you very much. So, any questions, as always, please do send them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and, of course, like, share and subscribe, and we'll see you next time.