Guest blog – ‘Leap into Death’
December 2024's ‘guest blog’ written by David Lambert - a Stroud resident, former Extinction Rebel, and part-time assistant here at Family Tree Funeral Company. I recently read a flyer from Pure Cremation,™ the UK’s leading provider of ‘direct cremation’, that is,...
Guest blog – Reflections on a not-so-direct direct cremation
Introducing our first ‘guest blog’, this piece has been written by Roger Vincent-Silk whose wife Barbara died almost a year ago in February 2021. Barbara’s funeral was not conventional in that Roger opted for an ‘attended direct cremation’ and a shroud, not a coffin....
Bringing The Funeral Home
Several weeks into this pandemic, and as funeral content is forced to shrink, a space opens up to develop new practices, with the possibility of greater poignancy and deepened intimacy amongst the much reduced attendance. A...
A young daughter’s tribute
Bicycles, sushi, sweets, pizza, nature, stars, mountains and the ‘King of the Mountains’ jersey– the story of a young father’s life as seen and painted by his very talented six-year-old daughter in the kitchen in their house on the Bath Rd, Stroud. A very simple...
The fastest getaway car in the world
Family Tree have been known for doing funerals that are somehow ‘different’; if we are asked to help with a ‘traditional’ funeral which has that familiar look and feel, there are still aspects we can suggest - together with the family - will reflect the character and...
The times they are a-changing: church funerals
Family Tree do not just ‘do’ humanist funerals or green burials! Not a recent development, but brought home by the three most recent funerals we have arranged. Today we had an extraordinarily beautiful – even exciting - high church funeral in Tewkesbury Abbey. The...
Funeral Car Trouble
Gloucester car wash jockey hit the back window with his metal ended lance, which crazed like a rifle shot as we were transporting the empty coffin to where the person was at rest an hour before the funeral. Despite clear film overlaid there was glass everywhere and an...
Dying Matters Awareness Week
Ever keen to raise awareness of end of life issues, Family Tree Funerals are hosting an event and taking part in this week long national awareness-raising event; around the country events will be taking place which aim to get death, dying and bereavement to be taken...
Rings on her Fingers
I can clearly see the shapes and shades of the back of my father's hands, the bruised copper bracelet he wore on his wrist to help with his arthritis: and he died in 1977. I vividly remember my mother's lovely rings. They were part of her. Amongst the 90 decisions...
Death and Dying … the Latest Media Darlings.
A friend in Stroud sent me a link to an article in The Telegraph about 'Britain's Craziest Funerals'. Big colour picture of a brassy gold Batesville 'Promethean' casket ($24K) was followed by a bling-filled piece (possibly written by the London Funeral Director) about...
Life in the Grave
Before the actual funeral we always check the grave for correct placement (and sizing!); often we would line it with hay, or leaves, or lavender – even soft branches – anything to soften the rather austere looking clay/shale floor. Checking the grave at Gloucester...
Shoulder High, with Friends
In the USA coffins are trundled on wheeled trolleys. Not so in the grand old United Kingdom: or at least in our Stroud funerals! Here friends and family hoist their beloved shoulder high and can swagger and stagger together with him one last time down the aisle. Here,...