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Funeral Arrangements & Burials - Should Religious Needs take Precedence Before Others?

It’s allways been my impression that the dead have other priorities...like what now???

Did I get the right one?.(..religion that is.)

Dark in here.

No. Religious preference be buggered. Get in line like everyone else.
 
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It’s allways been my impression that the dead have other priorities...like what now???

Did I get the right one?.(..religion that is.)

Dark in here.

No. Religious preference be buggered. Get in line line everyone else.

Admit it; you've been on the falling down water again, haven't you?

:razz:
 
Well, as a retired lawyer I would hope (and suspect) that the coroner or medical examiner would give priority to cases that are believe to be foul play. The police really need the details as to type of poison, type of gun or knife, and want to get DNA swabs to process to assist in the investigation.
An additional glitch for families can be to have death declared so the body can be moved. For years in my US state (Massachusetts) a medical examiner or an MD have to certify death . Not a problem if uncle Arthur passes away in a hospital. It can be a problem if uncle Arthur is lying dead in the middle of the kitchen floor. They finally have allowed a paramedic to declare the person dead so the funeral service can remove the body.

It gets really unpleasant if a family is fighting about details. One of my clients died at home. He was 50ish, obese, diabetic ,had high blood pressure and a history of heart problems. Once poor Charlie was at the funeral home warfare started. The brother who was on the outs with the rest of the family called the medical examiner saying he has suspicions but the ME talked with Charlie's doctor and said he had no interest in doing a post mortem exam. The difficult brother then had a lawyer call the funeral home demanding no embalming as he was getting a private hire pathologist to examine the body. It ended up with poor Charlie being held in the funeral home for a week, un-embalmed while the family fought. The poor funeral director was beside herself. Contrary to what you see on TV most funeral homes do not have morgue fridges as bodies are usually embalmed as soon as they get to the funeral home. She had to keep Charlie in the embalming room with the air conditioning on maximum which helped a bit but did not keep the poor man from getting riper. The rest of the family was upset as they just wanted to bury their brother. Horrible for them, the funeral director and aggravating for me.
Funny thing,after we got Charlie buried, the bad brother had his lawyer produce a dubious document claiming the deceased had sold all his (50 odd) guns to him. When the police had arrived for Charlies death they had taken all the guns to the police vault for safekeeping. I cheerfully told his lawyer that I would have the guns delivered as soon as bad brother produced a Federal ATF form 4473 for each of the guns as required by law. Since there were no forms he got no guns. As the good brother had Maine licenses and not Massachusetts and I have a Massachusetts large capacity license, I went with the good brother to the police station to pick up the guns, filled my clients truck with guns and we drove to Maine to put the guns in the clients safe, after we had done a bit of target shooting. (never fired a .458WinMag before. it kicks!!) and a nice lobster dinner from my client on the way home.
(in case you are wondering I did not charge my client for the fight to get Charlie buried or for the road trip to Maine)
 
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I had my fathers funeral last week.

He had been ill for a while so he pre-paid for a Co-op basic funeral with no frills (He didn't want any fuss)
Despite not paying for any extra's the funeral directors did their level best to meet our requirements and did everything asked of them
Because family was flying in from abroad and elderly siblings travelling from all across the country the job was done within the date and time range we asked for.

But you wait your turn. Every family organising a funeral wants it done in a particular way and at a particular time.
I gave the Co-op a list of preferable dates asked for a late afternoon slot at the crematorium. Thats exactly what they gave us. No requirement to pay a premium price, no prefferential treatment.

Every single family who has a funeral to arrange is a priority to themselves.
Pay your money, make your requests and stand in line. All coffins being equal and all that.


A Co-Op funeral.....?

Is that where you turn up for the funeral, there's 5 freshly dug holes in front of you, a couple of dozen people milling around waiting for something to happen and no-one available to do the planting or is that just how they run their crappy stores?
 
Perhaps the bottleneck could be addressed by longer opening hours at crematoria with shift working. Would allow better productivity and early evening funerals might be easier to get to for working age mourners. No doubt local authority unions would shy away from any such idea
I think it’s more to do with infrastructure.

3 weeks in England to get a slot at a crem.
3 days in Scotland to get a slot at a crem.

England has seen a massive growth in population over the last few decades whilst Scotland hasn’t.


I like the idea of evening funerals, but I’d struggle to see how they’d help. You’d need more staff to run them in the evening, and mor importantly, who wants and evening service?
 
I think it’s more to do with infrastructure.

3 weeks in England to get a slot at a crem.
3 days in Scotland to get a slot at a crem.

England has seen a massive growth in population over the last few decades whilst Scotland hasn’t.


I like the idea of evening funerals, but I’d struggle to see how they’d help. You’d need more staff to run them in the evening, and mor importantly, who wants and evening service?

I don't understand. The maths don't work out, if there were more stiffs than burners then surely the backlog would be getting bigger and bigger. If it's a steady 3 weeks (And I appreciate there are busier times like winter), then a few shifts of overtime would sort the backlog.

Otherwise we need to build more crems, and as it's a lucrative business then surely that's not a problem. Simple Supply and Demand.

I suspect there's more than meets the eye to the delays, litigious families, unreasonable requests etc, such as wanting to push in front due to their flavour of imaginary friend.

So no. Wait in line and rigidly enforce it. Having to wait 3 weeks to bury my brother was really hard on my mum and dad.
 
So if the Jews or Muslims want faster action, pay for it.

Expecting the culturally diverse NHS or whoever to pander to their sky pixie beliefs is not part of the deal.

Pay a premium in taxes to get more of the bottleneck available on overtime or sponsor their own oven, something the Jews might think is bad taste but I am sure certain Muslims will offer FOC to assist in the passage.

Out of interest, it was my understanding that the body doesn't get cremated at the dilapidated building you say goodbye at, why don't we just set up a Funeral place and pump them through? Everyone can say goodbye then the casket and stiff returned to the waiting room for inspection?
 
A Co-Op funeral.....?

Is that where you turn up for the funeral, there's 5 freshly dug holes in front of you, a couple of dozen people milling around waiting for something to happen and no-one available to do the planting or is that just how they run their crappy stores?

No complaints at all about Co-op funeral services. Did the job politely and proffesionally exactly as asked. They dealt with the whole thing quietly and without fuss. They also worked with the family to schedule everything around people arriving from various parts of the world and having to work around available flight times etc
My father did actually drive a hearse at one time for The Co-op back in the 1950's so it was probably quite appropriate tht he chose them to deal with him at the end of life

Seriously ugly Ford hearse but otherwise no complaints.
 
I can appreciate that where a religion bases itself on the original location, requiring bodies to be disposed off immediately, but not in a different climate where different conditions exist.

That indicates to me that as it seems to be with all religions there is a requirement to exert power over followers without any other consideration.

In UK I can see no reason why any religion should take precedence over others where funerals are concerned.
 
I don't understand. The maths don't work out, if there were more stiffs than burners then surely the backlog would be getting bigger and bigger. If it's a steady 3 weeks (And I appreciate there are busier times like winter), then a few shifts of overtime would sort the backlog.

Otherwise we need to build more crems, and as it's a lucrative business then surely that's not a problem. Simple Supply and Demand.

I suspect there's more than meets the eye to the delays, litigious families, unreasonable requests etc, such as wanting to push in front due to their flavour of imaginary friend.

So no. Wait in line and rigidly enforce it. Having to wait 3 weeks to bury my brother was really hard on my mum and dad.
The theory of queuing is a magical thing. It’s like the NHS. If there’s a three month wait, why don’t they do overtime for a few weeks to clear it and then keep on top of it.

There’s seasonal peaks and troughs with people passing.

Scotland has more crem space to accommodate those peaks. England doesn’t.

You could start evening cremations but you’d need the staff, but realistically, the cremation/funeral is only one part of the process. Nobody wants to go to a wake that starts at 8 in the evening. You’ve got children and elderly people the deal with and these events, nobody wants to hang around outside a crematorium when it’s dark outside and family and friends want to have time for the wake.

Capacity is the issue and as far as I can see the only option is to build additional crematoriums to accommodate this. But that costs.
 
I like the idea of evening funerals, but I’d struggle to see how they’d help. You’d need more staff to run them in the evening, and more importantly, who wants an evening service?

In the US the African-American community often have evening funerals. I understand that this is due to family members being in jobs that discourage taking time off without loss of pay.

Most funerals in the US tend to be within 3 or 4 days of the death. I have noticed that some African-American funerals are 2 or 3 weeks after death. I once was on a bank's board and another member of the board was an African-American lady who was a funeral director. She told me the reason for the time lag before funeral and burial is because funeral homes serving the black community hold off on the funeral until they are paid for all of the services provided. You can't repossess a coffin after it has been buried with it's occupant.
 
In the US the African-American community often have evening funerals. I understand that this is due to family members being in jobs that discourage taking time off without loss of pay.

Most funerals in the US tend to be within 3 or 4 days of the death. I have noticed that some African-American funerals are 2 or 3 weeks after death. I once was on a bank's board and another member of the board was an African-American lady who was a funeral director. She told me the reason for the time lag before funeral and burial is because funeral homes serving the black community hold off on the funeral until they are paid for all of the services provided. You can't repossess a coffin after it has been buried with it's occupant.
Each culture and sub culture do their own things.

Afro Caribbean community in the UK like to fill the grave in themselves for example.

Personally, I’d feel a bit odd at an evening funeral. Just as I’d feel a bit odd at an American evening wedding.

I guess Americans just don’t like taking time off work. (As witnessed by the ridiculously short holidays entitlement.
 
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