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Funeral directors ponder grave issues of co-operation

Saturday, 10 June 2006

By Jonathan Moules
June 5 2006

Americans prefer burials, the Japanese choose cremation, while in Britain Victorian-style funeral processions with horses and carriages are experiencing a revival.

The lack of agreement over the way to bury our dead has been exercising the minds of more than 400 funeral directors from 21 countries, who gathered at Canary Wharf this weekend to try to form some consensus on the issue.

The International Federation of Thanatologists Associations was meeting to discuss the need for global co-operation to get bodies back home to loved ones after terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

Barry Albin-Dyer, a south London funeral director who holds the IFTA's revolving presidency, said: "It is a bit like the UN." The organisation had achieved a number of improvements to smooth the return home of people who had been killed abroad since it was formed 36 years ago, he added.

One of the most recent was a "passport for the dead", written in 22 languages, providing all the necessary documentation to get a corpse across borders.

Delegates at the London conference agreed on the need for further co-ordinated action. Dominic Verne from Anubis, an international funeral business based in Paris, said: "All countries face similar issues, especially in the area of disaster management.

"This conference is vital if we want to improve international collaboration to make the process [of bringing bodies back from foreign countries] easier."

One of the pressing challenges is how to cope with mass fatalities seen in disasters such as the Asian Tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 2004, or last July's London bombings that killed 56 people, including those carrying the explosives.

There was concern that funeral directors were not more closely involved during the London bombings, when police set up temporary mortuaries. Mr Albin-Dyer argued that funeral directors should be seen as the fourth emergency service in such situations.

"The one thing that funeral directors do well is to listen to people who have lost loved ones and to tell them the truth and understand. When disaster strikes, there is a role for them to play," he said.

Nick Breton, detective chief superintendent at the Metropolitan police, told delegates that part of the reason that funeral directors were not more involved last July was because the authorities wanted to test the emergency response teams.

Robert Jensen, president of the Houston-based Kenyan International Emergency Services, a group that helps companies and governments deal with disasters, said: "Where most of these incidents fail is not at the technical level but at the political level."

Burials were the norm in Britain 30 years ago, but today about 73 per cent were cremated because of a lack of cemetery space, said Mr Albin-Dyer.

In the US, only 35 per cent of the dead are cremated.

The average British funeral costs £2,000, or four-and-a-half times the average weekly wage.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7bc65c02-f42f-11da-9dab-0000779e2340.html

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