Upheavals Among the Dead

Undertaking is a very stable business: funeral fashions change, but dying itself never goes out of fashion. Families tend not to shop around for an undertaker when someone dies, as getting a good deal isn't usually the first thing on their minds; they will stick with a firm they've used before, unless their most recent experience was absolutely awful. This means that companies develop their own local fiefdoms and while there is rivalry there is not really that much competition: firms will share facilities and personnel if they have to. It is true that The Trade is now dominated by a few big providers who operate locally under the names of long-established and familiar companies, but the people who actually work in those local branches, whatever name they have, often stay for decades so the experience people have using them isn't very different from what it might be if they were genuinely independent.

We had a bit of a shock a little while ago in Swanvale Halt when our local branch of Co-Op Funerals closed after a car drove through the front window, accidentally one has to add, and the company decided not to reopen it. Shame really, as I remember blessing the chapel of rest when it started up. But our ancient and much-respected undertaking firm, Greengages, are now experiencing their own upset. A reorganisation at the overarching company who operate Greengages resulted in a demand that branch manager Phil re-apply for the job he has had for thirty years and more, and although this is now a common practice in our weird modern world it was quite understandable that he told them to take a jump and handed in his notice. He took with him his son who also worked for the firm, and all the local knowledge and experience they had built up over the years. Pastoral Assistant and local councillor Paula now tells me Phil and Arthur are setting up their own business on the road into Hornington and I think I ought to call by. It never does any harm to be nice to your undertakers, even though - or perhaps especially - because so many fewer funerals come clergy's way these days.