A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

When a friend of his died in a hospice MC was anxious to cut down on funeral expenses so that there would be money left over from the estate to make a donation to the hospice. Someone suggested he should do all the funeral arrangements himself, so he contacted the hospital mortuary where the body was being kept after the post-mortem. The doctor who had conducted the examination said that the body could be kept there for up to two weeks until the cremation was organised.

MC then obtained cremation forms signed by the doctor and the doctor at the hospice, took them to the local crematorium together with the green form issued by the Registrar, fixed a date and time for the cremation and paid the cremation fee. He then found a funeral director who would supply him with a coffin, and gave him the full name and date of birth and death of the deceased which would be engraved on the lid of the coffin for identification purposes. He then made arrangements to hire a van for the funeral from a car hire firm.

On the day of the cremation MC loaded the coffin into the van and took it to the mortuary where the body was placed in it. On arrival at the crematorium he and a friend carried the coffin – with some difficulty – into the chapel for a brief taped service, at the end of which the coffin disappeared from view. The following working day, armed with authorisation from the crematorium office, he collected the ashes in a container from the crematorium and later took them to Ireland to be scattered in a churchyard there.

Most of the people he encountered were helpful and friendly and – even more important – the savings meant that he could make a substantial donation to the hospice.