Funeral Blues

Stop All The Clocks (Made famous by the 1994 movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral.")

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,

The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand (FDANZ) is an association of about 85% of funeral directing companies in New Zealand - a group of caring professionals who are committed to ensuring that the families they serve are receiving high quality service.

The absence of legislation governing the provision of funeral services means anyone can set up as a funeral director. There are people who do this without experience or training, appropriate vehicles, premises or the skills to provide care, support and the attention you and the deceased deserve.

Bereavement is a distressing but common experience. Sooner or later most of us will suffer the death of someone we love. Yet in our everyday life we think and talk about death very little, perhaps because we encounter it less often than our grandparents did. For them, the death of a brother or sister, friend or relative, was a common experience in their childhood or teenage years. For us, these losses usually happen later in life. So, we do not have much of a chance either to learn about grieving - how it feels, what are the right things to do, what is 'normal' - or to come to terms with it.

Under UK law - provided drains and mains services are not affected and commercial gain is not made - a body can be buried more or less anywhere. What's more, the services of undertakers are not mandatory. Families can decide to pick up their loved one in their own vehicle and inter them in their own way - with or without ceremony or religion.