Not so long ago, when a loved one died, their family would most probably be living in the same town and it would be convenient for them to pop into their local funeral director to make any arrangements. Today, British people are more inclined to spread their wings further afield when they fly the family nest. In fact, new research has revealed that we now live an average of 100 miles from where we were born, compared with just five miles a generation ago.
This means that when it comes to planning funerals, not all of our families are able to visit us easily to do that. We very often have conversations with family members who live the other side of the country or sometimes abroad and, while most are preparing to head back to England for the funeral itself, they aren’t necessarily on the ground for the planning stages.
Thankfully, modern communication means that we are able to chat either on the phone or by email, sending photos of floral arrangements and copies of the order of service etc.
As an aside, if family members are travelling back abroad after the service and want to take some of their loved one’s ashes with them, we can provide a letter of explanation for customs and for the airline. Also, if family and friends live abroad and can’t travel to the UK, perhaps because they are elderly, then the Crematorium offers a podcast service, allowing people to sign on to a live link and watch the service as a it happens. Alternatively, we can audio record the service and put it on a CD for anyone who can’t be present.
Nowadays, with a good wifi connection, live streaming is also possible from other venues as well.
In other cases, there are might be reasons which prevent family who live fairly locally to Crowborough from visiting our office and, in these cases, we can arrange a home visit. It could be that a close relative is too frail to come in to see us or they might simply not have transport.
It also happens that sometimes, the thought of coming to a funeral home is simply too difficult for some people. We completely respect and understand that and will work around this for our families. We do appreciate that some people find it more comfortable to have those initial conversations with us in the familiar surroundings of their own home.
As we’ve said many times before, every funeral we arrange is different and we will always work closely with a family to make sure their wishes are fulfilled whenever we possibly can.
