Two families asked the city of Carlisle if they could arrange funerals without a funeral director. As we believe in the right of the individual, we did not consider saying No but, they had a problem, no coffins! They both had to approach funeral directors to buy one and found this traumatic. One family gave in and used a funeral director, the other bought a coffin but in her words, was 'ripped off'.
These local people were unable to use our community service, because funeral directors decided that they were a threat to their commercial future. This is a classic case of the funeral director seeing himself as a 'gatekeeper' for our facilities. By controlling the supply of coffins, he was able to allow or not allow, a bereaved family to use our facility.
We were also, at that time, asked whether bio-degradable coffins could be used for funerals. In response, I asked to attend a meeting of the local National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD). There, I asked them whether they would address these two customer needs. Firstly, would they nominate a funeral director who would sell coffins to families wishing to do the funeral themselves? Secondly, would they offer bio-degradable coffins? The response was a blunt No!
Subsequently, we purchased standard chipboard coffins and bio-degradable coffins. This was in spite of the local NAFD going to our coffin supplier and giving him an ultimatum - if you sell coffins to the City of Carlisle we will take our business elsewhere. This is further evidence of how the funeral directors' commercial interests take precedence over the needs of this community.
Ken West, Carlisle Cemetery, Richardson Street, Carlisle CA2 6AL (tel 01228 25022).