The American Way of Death Revisited

In order to appreciate the changes in the funeral landscape that are currently taking place in England, it will be useful to revisit the scene as it existed thirty years ago.

Funerals in England Then

American funeral directors often say, “England is about fifty years behinds us.” To the English, this might sound like a veiled note of warning: does it mean, for example, that fifty years from now much of England’s green and pleasant land will have been converted into Memorial Gardens of Eternal Peace? From Sherwood Forest to Forest Lawn in one easy step? It requires more than a little imagination to visualize a bluff English squire and his hard-riding, rugged-faced lady transformed into Beautiful Memory Pictures, their erstwhile stony and disapproving features remolded by the hand of a Restorative Artist into unfamiliar expressions of benign sweetness. Would their caskets be named (like the American “Valley Forge”) after famous battles—the “Battle of Britain,” in delectable shades of Royal Air Force blue, or “Flodden Field,” with an archery motif? Or perhaps (like the American “Colonial Classic”) after periods in English history: the Restoration Rolick, the Crusader, Knighthood in Flower, the Victorian Voluptuous with overstuffed horsehair interior made expressly to simulate the finest drawing-room furniture of the period? Would the squire and his wife be decked out as for the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, he in top hat and cutaway, she in trailing flowered chiffon, or more simply in Harris tweeds complemented by Practical Burial Gum Boots?

There has been heard in America a singing radio commercial whose words, set to the tune of “Rock of Ages,” go like this:

This might be going a little too far for England, but it would be rash to underestimate the penetrating power of American enterprise.

Jingles like this may one day be beamed on commercial telly and adorn billboards in the countryside: “Repose with your mate / Near the bones of the great / By appointment, I ween / To H.M. the Queen.”—Westminster Memory Gardens, Ltd. Or, “Your Heart in the Highlands-Forever!”—Happy Hebridean Haven, Ltd.

Fanciful, perhaps, yet perhaps also the English would be well advised to note that American missionary schemes to “civilize” English funerals are already under way, and some headway has been recorded.

As early as 1926, a member of National Selected Morticians reported to his colleagues on what had most impressed him on a visit to England: “I spent a day in Liverpool with a fine gentleman, one of the very best. They know very little about embalming in any other part of the world, outside of America. They are going to. England has been agitating the matter. I take one of their journals, and they commenced agitating a couple of years ago. I think if we could send some missionaries over there, we would do them a world of good….”

It took a long time for our missionaries to show tangible results for their efforts. The Brits seemed to like being fifty years behind their Yank counterparts.

It is of little use to ask English friends to describe the procedures in a typical funeral, because so few have been to one. Whereas Americans flock to the funeral of a coworker, a neighbor, or a casual acquaintance, in England only the closest relations go; consequently many people, even those of middle age, have never actually seen a funeral. Some are, perhaps understandably, reluctant to make inquiries. One friend wrote, “I have not yet been to call at _______ Undertakers, although I walk past there every day; I fear I have the superstitious feeling of an old horse passing the knacker’s yard.”

Another friend spent some time with a country undertaker and sent a full report: “First and foremost, he said—and this is borne out by my own feelings and the experience of everybody I have asked—that we aren’t even on the fringe of imitating Americans yet, and there will have to be a big change in the psychology of everybody concerned before we do. This at least is one area where there’s no attempt to produce a milk-and-water copy of the American original. The undertaker is quite definitely regarded as a tradesman—no cachet attached to the job whatsoever; and in the country he is almost invariably the local builder as well. About embalming, the local man said he’s only had to embalm one corpse in ten years (the family was abroad and the funeral had to be delayed ten days), and there’s not the slightest indication that it is likely to grow in popularity. The whole mentality of burying here is that the dead should be disposed of with quiet respectability and the minimum of fuss and publicity. Decent and quiet, you might say.”

Further investigation convinced me that there were contradictory forces at work. There are those within the trade who are envious of their American counterparts, who would love nothing better than to transplant the American way to England’s unreceptive soil. They find themselves, however, up against the relentless English common sense and preference for the ordinary way of doing things. An English undertaker, speaking at a Dallas meeting of National Selected Morticians, explained the difficulty: “The chief reason why our average is low is the very fact that I have tried to tell you about British character—their desire for moderation. In our own selection room we display a full range of hardwood caskets, oak, walnut, and mahogany. Yet of the clients who can afford the best, 90 percent would choose the traditional coffin. They would say of the caskets, ‘Very beautiful, but too big, too elaborate! We will have an oak coffin like we had for grandfather!’ This is a problem that has concerned us for many years…. I must tell you, also, that our presentation must be accomplished without the use of cosmetics. Heavy cosmetizing would bring the strongest complaints from our clients. They tell us quite firmly, ‘I don’t want Mother touched up!’ ” He does, however, mention “an aspect of American funeral service which appears to be more readily accepted by our British public. All over the country funeral directors are building funeral homes, putting in private chapels and rest rooms.[21] They are not comparable with the beautiful buildings I have already seen this last week, but nevertheless, our men have recognized the need and are now beginning to provide the facilities.”

The English trade publications the Funeral Director and Funeral Service Journal reflect in their pages a predominantly traditional approach, with occasional revealing flashes of possible changes on the way. Their very titles, which must have, to the English ear, an unfamiliar transatlantic ring, tell us something; yet unlike the American funeral magazines, they are modest in format and sparsely illustrated.

The advertisements for the most part call a coffin a coffin, a hearse a hearse, and a shroud a shroud; there is “Coffinex Aqueous Emulsion, [which] supersedes the old method of applying boiling pitch and wax, which was both laborious and uneconomical” (an improvement we can surely applaud); but “casket” is by no means unknown; there is Casketite Bitum Emulsion, “for simpler, more economical sealing of caskets and coffins.” Social events for English undertakers as reported in these journals have not reached the Vault-burger Barbecue stage; they adhere rather to traditional English ideas of what constitutes jolly good entertainment; we are told that “in April a number of members and their ladies attended a performance of ‘The Iron Hand’ given at H.M. Prison, Sudbury.” The editorial writers tend towards conservatism. One of them, describing an American funeral director who distributes “packs of quite good-quality playing cards which, on the back, carry an advertisement for so-and-so’s funeral home,” comments that he “would not like to see such advertising in this country.” Yet there are also reprints from American magazines: how to use the telephone (“never use the personal pronoun ‘I,’ always use ‘we’; speak with warmth in your voice, clearly and with sincere friendliness”); how to set up a casket-selection room, and the like—but they did not seem to have altered the basically English character of these journals.

There was a study course available, a fairly comprehensive text of some seventy-five mimeographed pages, prepared by members of the trade for the “voluntary examination in funeral directing.” Since there is no law in England requiring licensing of undertakers, the study course and examination are in effect an exercise in self-improvement rather than, as in America, a legal requirement.

The study course, like the trade publications, is a strange mixture of old and new concepts about the disposal of the dead, English and American terminology, the traditional English approach combined with aspects of the American Way.

How refreshing to read, for example, that “it is not the function of the funeral director to become the family sympathiser but rather to offer helpful advice.” And that while it is permissible to let the family know that a private chapel is available on the premises for the service, it is “very wrong to be over-persuasive in this matter”; that if they are regular church attenders, “it is certainly good practice to suggest that the Service be held in their own church. This is appreciated by the family and the Clergy.” Equally permissive—in contrast to the attitude of the American burial industry—is the position on cremated remains (“cremains” has not yet found its way across the Atlantic); this is a “matter for the family to decide. The majority seem to prefer the scattering of the cremated remains in the Garden of Remembrance attached to all Crematoria” or at some other spot of their choice. Sentimentality is positively discouraged. Discussing obituary notices, the study course cautions: “In some cases, one is requested to insert over-sentimental verses, and all the Funeral Director’s tact is called upon to dissuade them in their own interest.”

Some agreeably down-to-earth advice was offered about the proper treatment of the corpse itself: “Dress in clean clothing—pyjamas, shirt or nightdress, etc…. Insert the laying out board under the body…. DO NOT TIE THE BIG TOES TOGETHER…. IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER SHOULD THE ARMS AND HANDS BE SECURED BY POSITIONING THEM UNDER THE BUTTOCKS…. DO NOT PLACE PENNIES OR WET PACKS OVER THE EYES.”

However, there are indications that a new day may soon dawn for the dead in England. A large portion of the course is devoted to the importance of embalming and how to sell it to a reluctant client, apparently best accomplished by not being frank. The words “hygienic treatment,” it is suggested, should be used in discussing the subject with the client: “By this, of course, you mean modern arterial embalming, but funeral directors are generally agreed that in the early stages of the arrangement, the use of the word ‘embalming’ is best avoided…. Although some funeral directors boldly speak of embalming, the majority consider it preferable to describe the treatment by some such term as ‘Temporary Preservation,’ ‘Sanitary Treatment,’ or ‘Hygienic Treatment.’ In this way it is felt that there is less likelihood of associating the modern science with that of the ancient Egyptians.”

The familiar justifications are offered for what one English authority has called “the meaningless practice of embalming”: it delays decomposition, it promotes public health, it restores a lifelike appearance. “The change effected is truly remarkable—gone is the deathly pallor… instead the family sees a life-like presentation of their loved one appearing as though peacefully sleeping. This result is a source of great comfort and has a decided psychological value.” Furthermore, the family may have “open casket or coffin at all times until closed for the Funeral.”

It is to the growing army of embalmers that we must turn for enlightenment on progress in introducing American funeral practices in England. Most English people are astonished to learn that embalming is sharply on the increase there. The British Institute of Embalmers claims over one thousand members. The uphill nature of their efforts to ply their trade can be inferred from an official statement issued by the institute: “Two primary factors have retarded progress. Primarily the fact that customs die hard in this country and in no case is this more evident than in funerals. The introduction of any new methods, apparatus or merchandise was treated with suspicion, not only by the mourners but often by the priest or minister conducting the funeral service…. Up to the present moment there has been little governmental support or recognition of the science. With exceptions, the medical profession ignore it….”

Hard is the lot of the really go-ahead embalmer in England. There is the unaccommodating English law, which requires that a death certificate be obtained and the death properly registered before the embalmer can get going. No chance there of getting started before life is completely extinct.

An English contributor to the American Professional Embalmer describes some of the roadblocks he has encountered. The main trouble seems to be that “the open-casket is unknown in this country…. The coffin is invariably closed at the funeral service proper and, more important still, the funeral director is frequently instructed at the first call to close the coffin immediately when the remains are placed in it. This lack of acceptance by the public of a fundamental American concept produces more than one difficulty for British embalmers; with no demand there can be no practice.”

English doctors, we learn, are most uncooperative: “The medical profession in Great Britain exercise a power second to none. Despite the National Health Service, and statements to the contrary, as a pressure group they are supreme… [T]hey would oppose with all the power at their command any attempt to limit autopsies. Indeed, no group can show more rooted opposition to modern funeral service and embalming in particular than this one. They stand squarely behind the cremation movement here, actively campaigning for it, doing all they can to reduce funeral service to little more than simple rubbish disposal.” Not only that, but the doctors are often unkind to the embalmers: “Except between friends and request by a funeral director or an embalmer, cooperation on the part of an examining surgeon will be wasted; if anything more than an ill-mannered rebuff is received it will be calculated obstruction carried even to the lengths of deliberate mutilation.”

With true British grit, the author ends on a note of hope for the future: “There can be no argument about it; in England the embalmer is out on his own and any progress he makes is over hard ground. That does not mean he is a quitter, however; far from it. At the moment satisfactory restoration is almost impossible to achieve but it will be achieved in the end, with help or without it, and no matter how far distant that end may be!” Rather bravely spoken, considering that achievement of the distant end apparently depends upon a complete reversal of the law, of public attitudes, and of views of the medical profession.

Some months after I had read about the ups and downs in the English undertaking trade, I had a chance to visit an English funeral establishment to check the vision against the reality. The very location of the one I visited, in changeless South London, seemed to foreshadow the attitudes I would find there. The West End may present a new façade from year to year—here an unfamiliar skyscraper under construction, there a block of service flats where before had stood the London mansion of some Scottish laird, everywhere the bright awnings and colored tablecloths of the newly imported espresso houses. South London remains the same: the haberdashery and furniture display in shopwindows might have been there for generations; the very buns in the cafés have a prewar flavor. “Clapham Road?” said the corner newspaper vendor whom I asked for directions. “Not far, just a nice twenty-minute walk; it’s just round from where my aunt’s lived for fifty years.” Not the sort of place, I thought, where people would be amenable to newfangled methods in any phase of life, let alone death; and in a way I believe I was right.

Mr. Ashton, whose establishment in Clapham Road is easily the most imposing building in the vicinity, is in some respects far from being a typical English undertaker. Whereas most of his colleagues are very small operators indeed, and generally perform this work as a sideline to some other trade, Mr. Ashton is the owner of nine London branches with a total volume of around twelve hundred funerals a year. Few English establishments could compare with this. Furthermore, he is among the tiny minority in England who routinely embalm all comers, and who might therefore have been expected to have absorbed at least some of the concomitant American approaches to the funeral. For these reasons, he seemed the ideal person from whom to seek clarification about likely trends in English funeral practices.

Mr. Ashton was a charming host. He led me through his entrance hall, conservatively decorated with neutral wallpaper and wine-red upholstered furniture, up the stairs to his private office, where we chatted over a cup of tea. I wanted to know about his own firm; something about the funeral trade as a whole; and, above all, the steps taken and procedures followed in the average English funeral.

Like a great many English undertaking concerns, Mr. Ashton’s is an old established family firm. It has been in existence for a hundred and fifty years, and he is of the fourth generation in the business. There is a growing tendency, he explained, for large firms to take over smaller ones, and this is how he acquired the nine establishments, all located in South London. The smallest of these averages about fifty funerals a year, the largest, three hundred. The clientele is mostly middle and lower class, and comes from South London. He runs his own coffin factory, in which he employs twelve factory hands, woodworkers who make the coffins. He also employs nine managers, nine drivers, an office staff of five, and three full-time embalmers. It takes four months to learn embalming, he told me; the minimum embalmer’s wage is 12 pounds a week (about $34) and “perks”—use of the car, etc. The managers do no embalming; their function is entirely separate.

There are in all Great Britain perhaps ten firms the size of Mr. Ashton’s, in the larger cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, London. In London, there are some 350 major firms, compared with 800 in New York, serving a population of about the same size. The larger firms all make their own coffins. There are a few wholesale coffin companies, which in many circumstances also furnish cars, embalmers, and all services for the smaller establishments.

Discussing the routines that follow between death and the funeral, Mr. Ashton positively exuded the no-nonsense, humbug-free attitudes so prized by this “nation of shopkeepers” in all their dealings, and in this particular calling so reassuring to find. I asked him what happens when a person dies in the middle of the night. American undertakers, to a man, take the greatest pride in rushing to the scene at no matter what hour; in fact, high on their list of “essential services”—and a major justification for their high charges—is maintenance of a twenty-four-hour operation, their ability to remove the deceased any time of the day or night within minutes of death. “I’d send along in the morning,” said Mr. Ashton. “Well, I mean unless the chap dies in the lavatory, or something, which did happen once, and then I had to go along at once, you see.” He explained that they are prepared to come in the night if necessary, “but we certainly don’t encourage it as long as the family is under control. Personally, I’m all for a quiet life and a little peace, and anyway people are more intelligent about such things these days. They realize that nothing can be done until the morning.” Death at home is anyway the exception. Eighty percent of deaths occur in hospitals. In that case, a relative goes to the hospital and procures the death certificate, which the registrar must have before burial can be authorized. The practice of keeping the body at home until the funeral is losing favor. Before World War II, this was done in 90 percent of cases, now in less than 10 percent. The minority who prefer to keep their dead at home tend to be at the opposite ends of the social scale: the very poor (“poorer people are far more traditional”) and the very rich, who are not only traditional but have more room in their houses. “The middle classes say, ‘It’s all unpleasant, let’s get it over.’ ”

We went to look at Mr. Ashton’s stock of caskets and coffins, which are kept in two small rooms. The caskets are styled somewhat after the American ones, only far less elaborate; all are made of wood. The use of metal for this purpose is almost unheard of. In fact, the only difference between an English “casket” and a “coffin” is in the shape, the former being rectangular, and the latter, tapered or “kite-shaped.” The lids of all were shut. Feeling that I ought to make some remark, I murmured, “Lovely, lovely,” which would have done nicely in America, where the funeral men take enormous pride in their stock. “I think they’re perfectly awful-looking things,” commented Mr. Ashton cheerfully. He opened one: “Look at that frightful lacy stuff, and all that ghastly satin.” He told me that there is practically no demand for the caskets; not more than a dozen a year are sold. We proceeded to another small room, containing five or six coffins. The cheapest are made of imported African hardwood or English elm, chosen by the majority of Mr. Ashton’s clients. Next in price is the English oak, and most expensive, mahogany. Vaults, in the American sense of a metal or concrete container for the individual coffin, do not exist (“Quite unnecessary,” said Mr. Ashton), although sometimes a family vault of brick may be built to accommodate six or eight coffins. I asked whether without a vault, earth might tend to cave in as the coffin disintegrates. This apparently is not a problem, although it is customary to wait six months for the ground to settle before putting up a gravestone, which is generally erected upon a concrete slab laid over the grave.

The majority of Mr. Ashton’s funerals average about 50 pounds ($140), to which must be added about half as much again for the additional expense of cemetery or crematorium fee, memorial stone, and the like. The most expensive funeral offered in the ordinary course of his business is 100 pounds ($280), and the most expensive one he remembers doing came to 300 pounds. Cremation costs about 4 pounds, and graves are from 15 pounds up—“London-wise, that is,” said Mr. Ashton. Away from London the cost is lower. The great majority of cemeteries and many of the crematoria are municipally owned.

I noticed that the minimum-priced coffin was not displayed with the others, and here I thought I detected the introduction of a particularly obnoxious American practice; was the cheapest coffin being deliberately concealed from the public gaze? I asked where the coffin for the 33-pound funeral was kept, and Mr. Ashton said there were plenty of them in the factory. Hidden there from the customers? I asked. Of course not! The customers never come up here; very very rarely does a person ask to see the coffins in the course of arranging a funeral. “You mean this isn’t a selection room in the American sense—you don’t bring them up here to choose?” “Good Lord, no!” said Mr. Ashton rather reprovingly, as though the very suggestion was in violation of decency and good taste. “People don’t want to look at these dreadful things. I mean, why should they? All that is settled when we talk to the family in the office.”

We next proceeded to the “rest rooms” where the deceased is laid out until the day of the funeral. They looked like cozy little sitting rooms, comfortably furnished with chairs and curtains. While they did not begin to approach the elegance of slumber rooms I had seen in the States, they were, I was told, exceptionally well appointed for England. I was curious to know to what extent survivors make use of these rooms. This varies quite a bit. A fair number never come at all. Generally, one or two of the immediate relatives, perhaps the widow supported by her grown-up son, come once to see the deceased. “It’s a sort of identification. Having looked, and presumably approved, that’s probably that.” Occasionally the reverse is true; a small percentage come daily with fresh flowers. Among the poorest classes, the neighbors sometimes come.

The funeral is usually held in the crematorium or cemetery chapel. (“They all have these horrid little chapels nowadays,” said Mr. Ashton.) The Ashton premises have a large room which he was intending to convert into use as a funeral chapel, but he found that there was so little demand for it that, instead, he uses it as a rest room. On an average, a “car and a half”—six to seven people—attend the funeral, although attendance varies tremendously; between two and three hundred may show up for the funeral of a prominent person. As in America, mourning is no longer worn except by the very old, who still think it proper to go out and buy “a bit of black” for the funeral. “Flowerwise,” said Mr. Ashton (once more springing this incongruous Americanism), he estimates that there would be an average of twenty floral pieces at an ordinary funeral. Workers spend a lot more on funeral flowers than do the middle classes; in fact, the latter tend to be more moderate in all ways.

If a country dweller happens to die in London, his body is generally taken back to his home parish for burial. A private motor hearse may be used, or the body may go back by rail. They fetch the coffin and take it to the station in a hearse. I asked whether embalming is required when a body is to be shipped. “If it’s to go by air, it’s got to be embalmed, but British Railways don’t require it; they’re not particularly fussy.”

An open-casket funeral is almost unheard of, said Mr. Ashton. Such a thing would be considered so absolutely weird, so contrary to good taste and proper behavior, so shocking to the sensibilities of all concerned, that he thinks it could never become a practice in England. He recalled the funeral of a Polish worker whose family requested an open casket: “The gravediggers objected very much to this. Rather absurd of them, when you come down to think of what their job is, don’t you know, but still they didn’t see why they should stand for having the thing opened. Cosmetics are never used. That sort of thing might go over in America, but really, I mean I don’t think you could get the people here to use it. If I had to say, ‘Come and see your loved one,’ I honestly don’t think I could keep a straight face.” Mr. Ashton added that Evelyn Waugh’s book The Loved One is one of his favorite novels, and that when it first came out he bought four copies for the amusement of his staff. But nevertheless, what about the adoption of certain American euphemisms—“funeral director” instead of “undertaker,” for example? Mr. Ashton thought that was originally instituted to stop the music-hall jokes about the trade, and because “the word ‘undertaker’ doesn’t mean anything.” He said that doctors and officials continue to use “undertaker,” although the telephone directory has recognized the new term and now has a listing for “funeral directors.” He added that some practitioners prefer “funeral director” simply because “it sounds more chichi, but personally I don’t mind.” As to other euphemisms—avoidance of words which connote death, “space” for “grave,” “expire” for “die,” “Mr. Jones” for “corpse,” and so on—he did not think these would catch on in England. “The attitude of the general public is, it’s a practical thing—if you don’t want to say anything about it, just don’t mention it.”

All this led directly to the subject of embalming; if there is to be no viewing, why then embalm? Mainly, for the convenience of the funeral establishment personnel. There is an average lapse of four to six days in London between death and the funeral (it takes one full day to get a grave dug), and, said Mr. Ashton, “the unpleasantness can be simply appalling.”

There is no restorative work done at Mr. Ashton’s place, and no cosmetics are used. Although he embalms routinely, without seeking permission of the family, he has not had any complaints. Over the past ten years, there have been perhaps three people who have specifically requested that there be no embalming. “When there’s been a long series of operations before death, somebody may say, ‘I don’t want ’er cut apaht anymore,” he explained. He agreed that the argument that embalming benefits the public health by preventing disease is not well founded: “We’ve tried to prove the disease factor, but we just can’t—we’ll have to accept the pathologists’ view on that.”

The complicated procedures required by English law relating to obtaining the death certificate have often been condemned; I wondered whether there were any efforts afoot to get the law changed. Quite abortively, said Mr. Ashton, there are attempts in that direction; in fact, he himself is a member of a Home Office “working party” initiated by the cremation authorities to simplify the law and speed up the process of getting a death certificate. “But I’m absolutely outnumbered on that,” he said cheerfully. “The doctors are dead against it, because the embalming process can hide certain poisons, make crime detection very difficult.”

Having in mind the “do-it-yourself” efforts of certain American funeral reform groups, I asked whether in England it would be possible for a survivor to bypass the funeral establishment altogether and take the deceased directly to the crematorium. Such a thing actually did happen once in Mr. Ashton’s experience. Two young men drove up in a Bedford van and said they wanted to buy a coffin. Mr. Ashton told them he didn’t sell coffins, he sold funerals. The young men insisted they did not wish a funeral; their mother had died, they had procured a properly issued death certificate, they had been out to the Enfield Crematorium to make arrangements, they intended to buy a coffin and take the mother out there themselves. “We chatted and chatted,” Mr. Ashton recalled. “Finally I was convinced they were on the level, so I sold them a coffin. What could I do? They weren’t doing anything wrong, there was nothing to stop them. But it really shook me. Afterwards I rang up the chap at the crematorium. I said, ‘Did that shake you? It shook me.’ ”

My final question was about “pre-need” arrangements; is there much buying and selling of graves and funeral services to those in the prime of life? Practically none, it seems. You can reserve a grave space, but it is almost never done. Once in a great while, said Mr. Ashton, some old lady may come round to the establishment, explain she is all alone in the world and feeling poorly, and ask him to care for all arrangements when her day comes. “We just put her name in our NDY file,” he said. “Meaning?” “Not Dead Yet, don’t you know. But nine times out of ten she’ll start feeling much better, might live another twenty years.”

Throughout our discussion Mr. Ashton impressed me as a realistic businessman, a kindly and responsible person, straightforward and practical in his approach to his work, with a good dash of wit in his makeup. One cannot even quarrel with the innovations he has introduced; the pleasant appearance of his premises is undoubtedly an improvement over years ago. It reflects concern for the comfort of those he must deal with, but does not remotely approach the plush palaces of death to be found everywhere in America. Whatever one may think of his practice of embalming all comers, at least he advanced truthful and comprehensive reasons for doing so.

If Mr. Ashton is a typical representative of the English undertaking trade, traditional English attitudes towards the disposal of the dead may after all be safe from the innovators for some time to come.[22]

Funerals in England Now

A cartoon depicts a group of sorrowing goldfish gathered round a lavatory bowl in which one of their number floats belly-up. The caption: “He always wanted an open casket.” Another shows two somberly suited pallbearers shouldering a casket, each wearing an outsize button inscribed HAVE A NICE DAY. One exclaims, “Always dreaded an American takeover.” Thus with a mixture of groans and ridicule was the advent of SCI greeted in the British press in 1994, the year in which SCI acquired two of the largest British funeral chains, the felicitously named Plantsbrook Group and the Great Southern Group, comprising more than five hundred undertaking establishments, cemeteries, and crematoria:

Across the pond, the funeral trade press was in a celebratory mood. The Southern Funeral Director (September 1994) offered some predictions about the future of British funerals now that SCI was on the scene:

Resistance to SCI’s pedagogical incursion was soon apparent. Pharos, organ of the British Cremation Society, called its account of the takeover INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. It warned of “possible price rise and the arrival of U.S.-style high-pressure sales methods.” Imported American coffins, it noted, may have a markup of up to 900 percent.

Unkindest of all was a prizewinning television documentary deriding the SCI takeover, scathingly titled “Over My Dead Body,” unanimously praised by the television critics and chosen as “Pick of the Week” by the Times. It was broadcast on November 27, 1994, just three months after SCI had consummated its U.K. transaction.

Set forth for British viewers to gape at in wonder are a funeral directors’ trade fair at which are displayed a gruesome array of embalming fluids, tools for removing the innards, cosmetics for corpses, and a dazzling assortment of caskets, culminating in “our top-of-the-line” item priced at $85,000. Jerry Pullin, SCI’s man in London, explains:

L. William Heiligbrodt, president of SCI, tells the viewing audience why the average price of Australian funerals rose by 40 percent after his company entered that market:

There is a segment on SCI’s immediate predecessor, one Howard Hodgson, known as the “yuppie undertaker,” a great fan of Mrs. Thatcher and one of the entrepreneurial stars of the Iron Lady’s regime. He describes how he achieved economies of scale via the “clustering” strategy, refurbishing funeral parlors, buying new hearses, and adding services like embalming, in fact, preparing the ground for SCI, to whom he eventually sold.

According to “Over My Dead Body,” 50 percent of the British dead were embalmed in the Hodgson era; yet the Independent of January 7, 1992, quoted Peter Hall, general secretary of the British Institute of Embalming, as saying that “a quarter of all corpses in this country are now embalmed.” He voiced the unappetizing suggestion that “the difference between a well-embalmed body and an untreated one is the difference between a plum and a prune.” If these figures are accurate, Mr. Hodgson had succeeded in less than three years in doubling the number of British dead transformed from prune to plum, an encouraging portent for the newly arrived SCI.

I was fortunate to be given what is known in the trade as a “cameo appearance” in the video. This took place in a large and well-appointed undertaker’s showroom where Derek Gibbs, owner of the London Casket Company, explained the offerings. He obligingly raised the casket lids to display a variety of beauteous linings in “luxury velvet” or “high-quality crepe.” Best of all was “The Last Supper,” described in the catalogue as “mahogany finished poplar timber, cream madeira crepe interior. Scene of The Last Supper colour insert in lid. Swing bar handles and adjustable bed. Angel corner pieces supplied on request at no extra cost.”

“Oh, how absolutely smashing,” I said. “I think they’re lovely, they’re absolutely top-quality,” replied Mr. Gibbs. “We do not hard sell them at all. They really just sell themselves.” We had the following conversation:

Long accustomed to the reticence of American funeral directors on the sensitive subject of the wholesale cost of caskets—one of the best-kept trade secrets—I was not surprised by Mr. Gibbs’s reluctance to disclose prices. But as it turned out, this was by no means the end of the matter. Some weeks later, on January 30, 1995, Mr. Gibbs wrote to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, which is responsible for maintaining standards of fairness and privacy. (Its function is roughly parallel to that of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.) His letter was full of anguish:

Reading this letter, I could not fail to be impressed by the poignancy of Mr. Gibbs’s experience. However, it hasn’t hurt his business. In April 1996 he told an interviewer that his casket sales for 1994–95 had been 312—up from 242 the year before. “It was slow going to begin with,” he said, “but our sales have grown steadily over the years. This last quarter, January, February, March, has been our busiest quarter ever. So it’s getting better. People like the idea of preservation. That is the point of the sale.”

Fast-forward to 1996. SCI has now held sway in this scepter’d isle for two years, long enough for a preliminary estimate of its impact on the British funeral scene. The Guardian led off February 27, 1996, with the headline HAVE A NICE DEATH:

The BBC’s “Public Eye” obliged with a documentary broadcast on February 17 entitled “Pay Now, Die Later.” Unsurprisingly, the presenter tells us that SCI refused to be interviewed for the program. But as is often the case, some of the best copy was mined from “internal documents” procured by some light-fingered sleuth on the “Public Eye” team.

For example, we are treated to “notes” issued to “SCI funeral directors in Britain to help them to overcome their ‘difficulty combining their helping role with that of a business role’ when helping a client to choose a coffin.” And here are the notes, eerily reminiscent of SCI’s directive to its Australian employees (see chapter 16, “A Global Village of the Dead”). It’s a small, small world.

So far so good, but that’s only for starters. Through more internal documents, “Public Eye” discovered that SCI was disappointed with the low income from “memorial sales,”[23] which, according to a memo to its general managers, is “without a doubt the single most important area of our activity to be improved.” To remedy the situation, SCI launched a new sales program, its details spelled out in the memo:

The unfortunate inclination of many survivors to scatter cremated ashes over sea, land, or in the Gardens of Remembrance adjacent to British crematoria has long been a major headache for the funeral industry, resulting as it does in the loss of lucrative niche and urn sales. In England, with its soaring cremation rate, the problem is particularly acute. SCI’s solution is to meet it head-on by sending a lavish memorial brochure with color pictures of available offerings, accompanied by the following poem:

Who could resist this admonishment, at once stern and loving, delivered as a direct order by a voice from the Great Beyond? Apparently quite a few people, such as Helen Lewis, who, according to “Public Eye,” was “particularly incensed” when the poem and brochure were sent to her from SCI’s Chichester crematorium where her father had been cremated. “I realize that that was just another ploy to get you to spend some money and do something with the person’s ashes,” she said. “It’s so awful when I think of that poem, because it’s so manipulative, really.”

There is more in store for the grieving family—SCI is not quite through with them yet, for now is the optimum moment to get them thinking about future funerals. It is, in fact, “pre-need” time. “Public Eye” has obtained a report written by a senior British SCI manager sent to the U.S. to study the company’s operation there. Fresh from this illuminating experience, he tells colleagues how to canvas families who have used an SCI funeral home in the weeks after the bereavement. Some pointers:

SCI was predictably none too pleased with the “Public Eye” effort. On February 29, less than two weeks after the broadcast, CEO Peter Hindley produced yet another internal memo addressed to “All Staff,” designed to deflect the blow:

That not “All Staff” were receptive to this appeal to their loyalty is evidenced by some extremely salty comments made to my London researcher by former SCI employees who quit around the time of the “Public Eye” program and others who still have an SCI connection.

Some SCI defectors, finding themselves in a fairly dicey position vis à vis the industry, spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. A, as I will call him, who had worked first as “arranger” then as “director” at Plantsbrook, stayed the course for a scant two weeks after SCI bought up his firm.

“I didn’t like the way it was run,” he said. “We sold set packages—a major rip-off. We were given about an hour with each client to find out what they could afford, then had to sell within this range or slightly above. We were not allowed to offer cheap funerals unless we had permission.

“It’s all about high-powered selling. The average member of the public only gets an inkling that the funeral home is American-owned when the final bill is sent out. The Americans are just like a lot of parasites eating away at the country.” He emphasized that “the main message to get through to everyone is, one, ask if the funeral director is independent, and, two, get an estimate from at least two different funeral directors.”

Green Undertakings, where Mr. A is now working, is far more to his liking. “We don’t offer packages. We ask a client what part of the funeral arrangements they want us to do,” he said. “There is no need to say good-bye by spending a lot of money. We encourage families to provide their own bearers. As to embalming, I haven’t embalmed a single body at Green Undertakings, though I would if asked.”

Mr. B, as I will call him, had been employed for four years by a Plantsbrook funeral parlor; several months after SCI took over, he resigned. “I was very unhappy with them,” he said. “I left because I couldn’t stand it. SCI just chases the buck; their commercialism is going to ruin them in the end.”

SCI has its own canny method of gradually softening up the new British employees, a form of behavior modification designed to ease them into acceptance of the American Way. For the first six months or so, Mr. B said, nothing really changed. Then, all employees were summoned to a meeting in a smart Kensington hotel where a new range of coffins was unveiled, amid assurance by the SCI mentors that they were not going to promote high-pressure sales techniques. “The old Plantsbrook range was made up of typically English-looking, pleasant coffins,” said Mr. B. But the new lot was proof to him that despite their protestations, “the Americans are committed to a very subtle form of high pressure.”

Here is how it works: The cheapest available is not displayed in the showroom, and there are no photos of it in the brochure. The only time it is ever mentioned is if somebody telephones to inquire about prices, the assumption being that “if they are the type of customer who is phoning, they will phone everybody to compare prices.” Total price of the rock-bottom funeral is $1,016[24] (which does not include “disbursements,” embalming, or complimentary car).

Those who come into the funeral parlor looking for a bargain will not be told of this option—“We were not allowed to mention it face-to-face with somebody in the shop,” said Mr. B. Instead, they are told the cheapest is “The Fundamental,” which Mr. B says looks like cardboard—and moreover, “it is specifically designed to look like cardboard.” The price of a funeral using “The Fundamental:” over $1,760—not including disbursements. $1,340 of this sum is for “professional services,” a hearse, and limo.

There are two more in the bottom range: “The Primary,” which “looks like a hi-fi unit that someone has dismantled and then put together to look like a coffin,” and “The White Pearl.” “They really look cheap,” said Mr. B. “It’s really bloody painfully obvious. The first three in the range are so awful. I wouldn’t bury or cremate your dog in the first two, let alone a member of your family. The cardboard ones really look super-cheap.” The fourth coffin is “The Consort,” which is “the nearest to the traditional English coffin,” but costs $760! To which, of course is added the $1,340 fee for “professional services” and the rest of the paraphernalia.

“Every single funeral director in every single shop complained about the coffins,” said Mr. B.

The above prices are in any event only meant for the serious bargain hunter, the rare hard-nosed individual whose main concern is keeping down the cost. For the average customer, “funeral directors are instructed to work from the top of the range down, and to keep the family in the coffin showroom for forty minutes. We are pushed to sell the more expensive coffins.” And here come the carrots and sticks: at the beginning of each year, each funeral parlor is assigned a target figure and a target budget. This is further refined as a breakdown of the number of funerals each is expected to perform each month and how much should be earned per funeral. “Some funeral directors have to sell a Consort or above to reach the budget figure,” Mr. B explained. Those who fail to achieve the budget figure get a letter or phone call expressing disappointment; Somebody Up There is watching, namely SCI’s control department. Mr. B had such a phone call last January, saying that he was down 12 pounds from the sales of the previous January. Conversely, two thousand overachievers are singled out each year for a “loyalty or productivity” bonus.

The SCI bigwigs were inclined to shrug off adverse comments from any quarter. Eric Spencer, an Englishman whose SCI title is senior director of corporate development, was chief executive of the Great Southern Group before the takeover. His primary responsibility, he said, is in Europe, although he does also look after some of the British acquisitions.

“This anti-American hysteria is quite laughable,” he said. “Although SCI is owned by Americans, there are only two American executives permanently in the U.K. Everyone below them is English.” He explained that SCI intended to maintain a low profile; it refused to get into a shouting match with its detractors in the media, which is why they declined the invitation to appear in the “Public Eye” documentary. He now thinks that decision might have been a mistake, and said that “we’ll see a more active response from SCI in the future.”

Peter Hindley, the English chief executive of SCI in the U.K., is the author of many an in-house directive to “All Staff.” Accusations of hard sell? “Absolute rubbish,” he said. “We do not have hard-sell tactics. What we have is people offering client choices, informed choice. We offer a much wider range of coffins than other funeral directors. We will offer a much greater range of ashes caskets [cremation urns]. We will offer memorial books, and a much wider range of graveside memorials. We will offer a better range of flowers.” Echoing his memo to “All Staff” in the wake of the “Public Eye” documentary (in his opinion, the program was “motivated by some of our competitors”), he declared that “small-minded funeral businesses spend their life trying to sling mud at SCI.”

Of far greater moment than the slings and arrows of the media to SCI’s plans for achieving its goal of “enhancing its revenues by enhancing consumer choices” is the May 1995 report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission presented to Parliament by the secretary of trade and industry by command of Her Majesty. The MMC is the British counterpart of the Federal Trade Commission, but the approach of the two agencies to their mandated job of consumer protection couldn’t be more different.

The FTC does not normally concern itself with so-called market share until it becomes formidable enough to threaten competition in wide regional areas. SCI’s national market share in the U.S., measured in terms of its own undertaking establishments, is about 10 percent. Not to worry, says the FTC. But what of Houston, Texas, where SCI’s market share, measured by its share of the funeral business, is no less than 70 percent?

The MMC, recognizing that competition in the funeral trade is of local rather than national concern, has taken a different view of SCI’s recent acquisitions in the U.K. It has condemned the merger on the ground that “it may be expected to operate against the public interest.” Its reasons stated with typically British reserve, the report castigates the merger in terms which would equally apply to SCI’s operations in the U.S. and Australia:

The report identifies ten localities where the merged companies’ share of funerals performed range from 29 percent to 51 percent. Consequently, the report continues, “SCI may be expected… to raise prices excessively… to the detriment of consumers in these localities.” While the Federal Trade Commission has turned a blind eye to SCI’s practice of concealing from the public its ownership and control of its hundreds of funeral homes by the fictitious use of their pre-purchase names, this practice is a matter of concern to the MMC:

The report recommends that SCI be ordered to sell off enough of its funeral business in the ten Greater London markets to reduce its market share to not more than 25 percent, and that it be ordered to make no further acquisitions in those areas without prior approval.

The report notes that “it would be natural for SCI to take advantage” of its acquisitions of crematoria by steering its business to them: “As prices at SCI’s crematoria are generally higher than those of competitors, this would be a clear loss to consumers.” Therefore, “SCI should be required to post prices of competing crematoria at every SCI funeral directing branch….”

Finally, there should be an end to SCI’s devious ploy of concealing its identity from the purchaser. It should be required “to disclose its ownership of funeral directing businesses prominently in all documentation presented to customers and in all advertisements or other promotional material used in connection with those businesses. We believe it is highly desirable that the disclosure of ultimate ownership of funeral directing branches should be the general practice throughout the UK.”[25]

Reverberating throughout SCI’s promotional literature, in memoranda from American executives to British staff and in written declarations for public consumption, are the words “dignity,” “respect,” “tradition.” These are repeated as a sort of mantra, meant to reassure everyone of the company’s sincere intention of preserving Britain’s ingrained funerary customs.

But then—oh dear!—SCI really put its foot in it by producing an illustrated brochure bearing the imprimatur of the staid and ancient British firm of the Kenyon Funerals now owned by SCI. The message: “Disasters cause the greatest public relations challenge any carrier can meet.” The Sunday Telegraph (May 12, 1996) made hay with this, under the headline OUTRAGE OVER FUNERAL FIRM’S PICTURE BOOK OF DEATH, with examples of the photos captioned “Macabre Marketing: A Montage of Disaster and Death.” Vivid scenes from some of Britain’s worst disasters: Lockerbie, Zeebrugge, Piper Alpha, and the Scilly Isles helicopter crash. Also featured were gruesome views of corpses being autopsied and the dead pilots hanging from the wreckage.

The families of victims were furious; Pamela Dix, whose brother died in the Lockerbie disaster, told the Telegraph, “This is both offensive and completely inappropriate—it strips away the dignity of the dead. A brochure like this shows they have in no way taken into account the emotional needs of survivors. People will feel very hurt.” A survivor of Lockerbie said, “It is quite terrible. I don’t know why they have to have photographs at all. Everybody in the airlines and emergency services knows what they do. This is insensitive.” Philip Lewis, chief executive of Kenyon Funerals in its pre-SCI days, said he was “appalled” by it: “I would not have done it and, frankly, I’m shocked. It is turning tragedy into an advertising slogan and is breaking every code we work under.”

Kenyon, founded in 1816, had an exalted past, having buried such dignitaries as Lord Mountbatten and Sir Winston Churchill; it had been undertaker for the Royal Family, but no longer. The Queen withdrew the royal contract when Kenyon was bought out, “preferring to deal with named individuals rather than large conglomerates,” according to Keith Leverton, whose firm, Levertons, is presently under contract to the Palace. True to form, SCI has been trying—so far without success—to obtain funeral records of British monarchs whose funerals were handled by Kenyon. They would doubtless use this information in future publicity, much as they have done with claims to Elvis Presley and U.S. presidents, all of whom died long before SCI acquired the premises that arranged their funerals.

English Country Funerals

In the English countryside, the style and conduct of funerals are, it seems, pretty much unchanged from time immemorial. This may be explained by the fact that the conglomerates have generally satisfied their takeover appetites by swallowing high-volume mortuaries and chains located in urban areas.

J. W. and J. Mettam are undertakers in the small Derbyshire town of Bakewell. Mr. Roger Jepson, managing director, says that their coffins are made on site as of yore, measured to fit in a range of sizes starting at 5 feet 5 inches by 16 inches and going up in 2-inch increments. Small coffins for children are made to order. Materials used are various woods or chipboard.

The Mettams provide a full service, as much or as little as the family wants and is prepared to pay for. Prices range from $1,056 (660 pounds) for the complete basic funeral, with oak veneer coffin, to the top-of-the-line Devonshire, solid oak coffin, for $1,750. Included in the price are collection of the body, obtaining death certificate, making all arrangements with church or crematorium, notices in newspapers, all transportation for accompanying family—they will even arrange for a funeral tea at a suitable hotel if asked. They cater to all denominations and to nonreligious groups such as the British Humanist Association.

In one respect, there has been a departure from the old ways: embalming is on the rise. It is always done if the body is to be sent abroad, or transported any distance within the U.K. It is also usually done if the family is coming to the Chapel of Rest to see the body—unless the family specifically objects. Unlike the mortuaries in the USA—where mortuaries routinely refuse to permit viewing unless the body has been embalmed—families here often view unembalmed bodies. In about 70 percent of cases the family (they often bring children) does ask to see the body, and this is encouraged.

However “viewing”—as the U.S. funeral directors call it—is generally limited to the close family members and is in no way comparable to the American custom of a general spectacle for the neighbors, coworkers, and mere acquaintances.

What about American caskets? They are never used in this way, although Mr. Jepson has heard of them in London. Floral tributes? Less of those—more donations to worthy charities. The coffin, closed, is usually at the front of the church.

A friend described the funeral of a retired farm foreman who bred his own Shire horses. “The tiny church was packed,” she said. “It couldn’t hold half the people who came, so there was a crowd in the churchyard. It was snowing, and bitterly cold. His family had arranged for a dray drawn by a Shire, all got up super-smart, to carry the coffin to the church. There is a steepish hill and I heard a sound which took me back sixty years—the scrape of the brake on the wheel of the dray. The farm men lined up outside the church and made an arch of pitchforks when the coffin was carried out. Talk about moving to tears—a village funeral is a killer, far worse than a big London affair.” It would seem that the Derbyshire countryside is for the moment quite safe from incursions of the American way.

At the other end of England, country funerals are conducted in much the same manner. A friend visited Philip Wakely and his brother Simon, of A. J. Wakely and Sons in Bridport, Dorset. They have two other funeral parlors under the same family name in Beaminister and Lyme Regis, all within a twenty-mile radius. The firm was established in 1897, and holds strongly to long-standing custom.

While they no longer make coffins on the premises, these are all in the traditional coffin shape. Thus far, nobody has asked for an American casket, said Mr. Wakely, “but if people wanted them, we’d have to supply them.” As in Derbyshire, “people are tending to ask for charitable contributions, and only the family brings flowers from their own gardens,” he said.

Prices range from $1,040 for an oak-veneered coffin with engraved nameplate, removal of the deceased within a twenty-mile radius, hire of a hearse, pallbearers and funeral director’s arrangement fee to the “Dorset Burial Funeral,” which comes with an oakdene-paneled coffin, for $1,952.

There is no extra charge for embalming, which would come under funeral director’s costs and is carried out according to the wishes of the family. “Many families in Dorset still like to view the deceased in their own homes,” Mr. Wakely said, “and this is the only time we recommend embalming; but some families do not want embalming even when the body will be in their home for as long as a week. Others prefer to use Wakely’s Chapel of Rest for the purpose; again embalming is optional.” The Wakelys estimate that fewer than 25 percent of their clients opt for embalming.

So far, SCI’s entry into the British funeral industry, as in the case of Mettam’s, poses little threat to the Wakelys. Philip Wakely said that although the new American presence is “kind of scary,” it “has only affected us from a distress point of view,” as people read about SCI in the papers and assume that all funeral directors operate like them.