Direct cremations

clearancer

I've recently got prices for direct cremation and they are surprisingly high. Fees to the crematorium are £700. Fees to the undertaker (the crematorium said you MUST use an undertaker) are £1000 (including all the paperwork). Cardboard (eco) coffins are more expensive than a standard wood coffin. I need to start a savings plan!

Aranyani

Dymphna60 said:

I know this is getting slightly of topic . What about friends? When people say that they will arrange a small event for close family only that is I always think .
My father requested a private funeral his reason being that he had been ill for years and only a handful of people came to see him . If they wanted to say goodbye they should have said it when he was still alive . That seemed fair enough so we invited those people to the graveside and lunch .
But friends aren’t nothing. Imagine if your best friend died , you had shared 30 40 50 + years of life with them but told family only for funeral.
My late partner was very upset when his lifelong friend suddenly died . There was a funeral service led by a young relative who spoke at great length about what a fun ‘ uncle’ he had been. That was nice but it was as if he had been nothing else . No mention of the deep friendships he had ., the many weeping girlfriends he left behind
I know it is difficult when mourning but I think it pays to stop and think how would I feel if I didn’t get to say goodbye.

I think this is a really good point, and also, friends will often have stepped back a bit during a person's final weeks/months in order to allow the family to take priority.  To lose a friend, having already lost that time, and then lose the chance to pay respects and mourn alongside others too would be very hard. 

Technosaurus

I work in the funeral industry (freelance celebrant) and during national lockdown was involved with some direct cremations.

As clearancer says, Direct Cremations aren't exactly small change. A furnace takes 1.5 hours to burn a human body whether there has been a funeral beforehand or not, so the council will still charge their crematorium fees. And, yes, you still need a licensed undertaker to deal with the body - again they do not work for free. Even stripping out everything else will still set you back a four-figure sum. 

I did once see a funeral where only one person was in attendance and they played the Last of the Summer Wine theme twice through with no words said. I asked the funeral director what was going on and whether they wanted me to say a few words as it looked very forlorn. turns out the deceased had said he only wanted his wife there but there were 200 people waiting in a nearby pub who were allowed to toast him the second the music finished... That approach strikes me as the 'best' way to do it if you want to go down the direct route - everyone got to say goodbye but most of them didn't attend the funeral. 

Aranyani

Technosaurus said:

I work in the funeral industry (freelance celebrant) and during national lockdown was involved with some direct cremations.

As clearancer says, Direct Cremations aren't exactly small change. A furnace takes 1.5 hours to burn a human body whether there has been a funeral beforehand or not, so the council will still charge their crematorium fees. And, yes, you still need a licensed undertaker to deal with the body - again they do not work for free. Even stripping out everything else will still set you back a four-figure sum. 

I did once see a funeral where only one person was in attendance and they played the Last of the Summer Wine theme twice through with no words said. I asked the funeral director what was going on and whether they wanted me to say a few words as it looked very forlorn. turns out the deceased had said he only wanted his wife there but there were 200 people waiting in a nearby pub who were allowed to toast him the second the music finished... That approach strikes me as the 'best' way to do it if you want to go down the direct route - everyone got to say goodbye but most of them didn't attend the funeral. 

Wow, I hope he had discussed that with his wife beforehand!

Technosaurus

One hopes he did, Aranyani! Although it did go from being one of the saddest sights I had ever seen to one of the funniest things I had ever seen in a heartbeat, so good luck to him!

One other thing to mention - someone above referenced "leaving bodies to medical science". A noble aim, one I think is wonderful and which I shall be doing myself. HOWEVER I will advise that sometimes the schools of medicine will reject taking the body...!  There's a multitude of factors as to why, sometimes it's due to the individual's attributes, mostly it's due to more mundane things like there is no room in their morgue or even the time of year (eg less demand for bodies outside of term-time).

This can leave a family suddenly having to sort out (and pay for) a funeral that they didn't expect to have to do, which can cause distress. Just something to bear in mind.