G Seller and Co - Andy Eeley & Joe Clarke-Ferridge
Whilst a simple funeral for one, is somebody else’s interpretation of elaborate, this episode discusses the simplest of funerals right through to a more bespoke and detailed service. If you are pre-planning your own funeral wishes, or arranging a service for a loved one, this podcast episode explains the variations in unattended, attended and bespoke services.
Whilst a simple funeral for one, is somebody else’s interpretation of elaborate, this episode discusses the simplest of funerals right through to a more bespoke and detailed service. If you are pre-planning your own funeral wishes, or arranging a service for a loved one, this podcast episode explains the variations in unattended, attended and bespoke services.
Hi. Welcome to the latest episode of Lifting The Lid. My name is Andy Eeley. I'm a Senior Funeral Director with G Seller Independent Funeral Directors, and we've been serving families, bereaved families since 1910. I'm sure you are well aware there's lots of different myths, misconceptions and lots of taboos surrounding the funeral profession. So we decided to put this series of podcasts together to try and dispel some of those myths and, of course, answer any questions that you may have. So please do, like, share, subscribe, send those questions, to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them. It genuinely is Our Family Caring For Your Family. Today I'm joined again by my co-host, Joe, and we're going to be talking about a simple funeral, or the simplest of funerals. So, I mean, in some respects it's quite subjective as to what a funeral actually involves. So the absolute most simple service that we can offer is a direct cremation, or sometimes known as an unattended service, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So with that, there is no funeral service as such, so we don't necessarily call it a funeral service. We do things as we absolutely perceive them to be, properly, even with an unattended funeral. So if there's no family going to be there, it has no effect on how we look after people. So for that funeral or for that service as such at the crematorium, if that's unattended, still provide a coffin and full a complement of bearers to go to the crematorium. Absolutely. We travel in the hearse as well, don't we? No vans. No vans, absolutely. Travel in the hearse and then the persons conveyed into the chapel, normally shouldered, of course, where possible, place onto the catafalque at the front. If family members want a piece of music played, again, I know it's highly possible there's not going to be anybody there, but we can still organise for an appropriate piece of music to be played at the chapel that can be played as we go in. The coffins on the catafalque, we'll stand back as the curtains close and then we give a bow as a mark of respect before we leave. Absolutely. So it's still done properly with the care, respect and dignity that everyone deserves. So, despite being unattended, as it were, we still kind of, to a degree, from our perspective at G Seller, we act as though the family is there. It just feels the right thing to do in terms of a simple service itself, because I guess the next level, we do have an attended funeral service, don't we, which is for want of a better expression, a basic structure, isn't it? Yeah. So with an attended service, it's essentially everything that you need to have to carry out a funeral service, but I guess at a fairly sort of basic sort of level. So if somebody comes into us and they say that we haven't got an awful lot of money and it's a sensible thing. We're not there to get people in debt. We got to be sensible about how we arrange a funeral in the same way we're sensible about how we spend money in any other aspect of life. I think it's important to say there that the fees involved with this, it's absolutely transparent all the time, isn't it? So it's on our price structure, which is displayed at G Seller, it's also on our price list and it's something we do talk through with you because, as you say, we don't want to put people in a predicament, a problem. In fact, our entire price structure is absolutely able to see easily. But yes, certainly with an attended funeral or a simple funeral, it limits in many ways the services that we provide. So on the day of the service, of course, you can still go straight to a crematorium or a burial site for a service, but we'll provide a suitable coffin for that. It's a suitable wooden coffin. You can still order flowers and have service sheets, but we just won't necessarily order these things for you, whereas you would with what we term as a bespoke funeral. So when we start talking about bespoke, that's where we kind of encompass everything, isn't it? So with a simple funeral service, we can have everything, but our role is...it's a little bit less, isn't it? We don't organise it for you, you kind of do those bits yourself. However, we don't leave people high and dry, as it were. This is something we try and assist with. So if somebody wants to order flowers, I'll point them in the right direction for the florist, if you want to put a notice in the newspaper, I've got a template, I'm quite happy to email it across to you and I can just tell you the best way to do that. Quite often someone in the family might want to do their own service sheet. You can still have that. They just might design it themselves and use that for the service. So it's just a way of keeping cost down. But therefore, of course, our services are slightly more limited. But that doesn't have any bearing on quality or how we look after people. Absolutely. And to say that we provide a wooden coffin, everything we of course provide is of good quality. We wouldn't provide it otherwise. Yeah. When we're making funeral arrangements with a family, we need to ensure that they're making the right decision. Sometimes the unattended funeral service, it may not be what they wish to have. So sometimes the simple service is not financially too much of an impact and it might be a bit more.. It can be a bit of a medium ground rather than the full blown. I've had scenarios where people have said that the person who passed away, it's the old saying isn't it? Put me in a black bag, cardboard box, and put me in the garden, which you're not legally able in a lot of cases, but a middle ground perhaps is something like an attended funeral or simple service, where actually you do have a funeral service. It gives the people that are attending a chance to mourn and grieve, perhaps, if they need to, but keeps costs down as per the remit of the person that's passed away as well. Yeah, because I think it's that right of passage, isn't it, a perception of having an unattended service. It's not necessarily about the person that's passed away, it's more about the people that are left. The funeral service itself, it's quite an important part, I feel well, I maybe completely wrong, but I feel that's an important part of that grieving process gives us a bit of closure. So if we can still offer it in some way, then that's exactly what we want to do. I mentioned at the beginning that it's kind of subjective, so, I mean, your perception of a simple service may be completely different to mine. I mean, my simple version could be horse drawn, brick lined grave, I don't know, anything, huge, big, epic event I'm much more of the person being buried in the garden, in the black bag. Absolutely should be said, of course, anyone could have a simple service, it doesn't matter. Someone that perhaps is more wealthy, could still have a simple funeral service. There's no limit, of course, as to who can have that at all. Absolutely brilliant. With regards to cremated remains as well, I think it should also be said that a lot of people come in and because they've had either an unattended funeral or maybe a simpler funeral service, they then think that that always corresponds to what happens with your created remains. Yeah, that's true. Whereas, of course, they're actually two completely separate things. So if you've had a no funeral service, unattended service or a simple service, in that respect, you can still do whatever you wish to with cremated remains. They can still be laid to rest in a local cemetery or churchyard if availability, you can still have them at home. The option, it's a separate entity. I think we'll be talking about cremated remains in one of these episodes of the podcast. But you're right, there's nothing to say if we've had a simple funeral service or perhaps unattended, we can still have perhaps the service of Thanksgiving, a celebration without your loved one there, or perhaps their cremated remains, it's another way of looking at things and again, it's a way of looking at the finances and seeing what works as a family best. Some people like to spend more perhaps on a headstone or a memorial, to commemorate the person as opposed to actual the funeral service. There's no wrong way of doing it, however family members feel is correct for them. I think that's the important piece, isn't it? It's about the family that we're looking after and their wishes and what they want to do. Brilliant. Thank you, Joe. No problem. Thank you so. Absolutely. Thank you. That wraps up another episode of Lifting The Lid, please do like, share and subscribe. If you've got any questions, of course, please send them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our best to answer them for you. Thank you. We'll see you next time.