STROUD FUNERAL NEWS AND ADVICE
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....
Covid update January 2021
Happy New Year to all our followers. Following the lockdown announcement last night, this is how funerals are looking in England now. As before, a maximum of 30 friends and family can attend a service but only six people are permitted to attend a wake. Crematoriums...
Coronavirus – September 2020 Update
As we head into September, the funeral world is looking more like its old self but still with some significant differences. Face to Face: We are now holding socially-distanced arrangement meetings in our office. The option remains to use Zoom or the phone if family...
Coming out of the Cocoon
As we head into July, the funeral world is looking more like its old self though there is still a way to go, and things change week by week. Face to Face: we are now holding socially-distanced arrangement meetings in our office; the option remains to use Zoom or the...
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...
Coronavirus – Covid-19
As we head into July, the funeral world is looking more like its old self though there is still a way to go, and things change week by week. Face to Face: we are now holding socially-distanced arrangement meetings in our office; the option remains to use Zoom or the...
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...