00:00So Dying Matters, it is basically just a platform for people to open up conversations at home.
00:06You know, our typical British culture is it's not going to happen or we don't want to talk about that.
00:11But it's to try and engage families to have that conversation, to know that that is the inevitable and that's
00:19what will happen.
00:19So let's open up a conversation to say, what would you like when it comes to your funeral?
00:24Quite often people will come at the funeral home and say, you know, would your mum like burial, cremation, whatever.
00:30And they're not really sure because we don't talk about it.
00:32So it's to try and engage that conversation with families.
00:35I think sometimes when a family choose to have a direct cremation and not have a funeral, that chance to
00:41say goodbye, that is something they sometimes regret.
00:44They don't get the chance to say goodbye.
00:46They don't get family coming together to celebrate the life of that person.
00:50And quite often when I've sat with families arranging a funeral, they will say to me, this is what dad
00:56wanted.
00:56This is what mum wanted.
00:57And I will open that conversation to them.
01:00Is that what you want?
01:01Because then we can then tailor the funeral to their individual needs.
01:05The research suggests that nearly one in five people regret choosing a direct cremation.
01:09Does that reflect what you're seeing on the ground with families that you're working with at all?
01:13Out of every five people that's interviewed, that one person still regrets that decision.
01:18It's a tough thing that they have to live with.
01:20What is that sense of missing that closure?
01:25Actually, what does it look like in real life for people?
01:26How does it show up in the way people are grieving?
01:28I believe people never sometimes come to terms with it.
01:32They wish that, you know, the maybes seek counselling.
01:37I believe that it's something that they'll often regret, thinking we should have done this, we should have done that.
01:42And they struggle with that, and that doesn't help them move on with their grieving process.
01:46Do you think people fully understand, when they sort of choose it, what an unattended direct cremation would involve, or
01:55the gaps in people's awareness?
01:56No, I don't believe families are aware of it.
02:00Recently, we had a family come into the funeral home, and they say, you know, this is what mum had
02:05wanted.
02:06She'd organised a funeral plan with us.
02:08This is what she wanted.
02:10And we explained what that consists of, and she was horrified by that.
02:13You know, she said, you know, mum just wanted something simple.
02:16Oh, I will sort it, I will sort it.
02:17So, as an independent, we have that flexibility that we will be able to turn that around to not necessarily
02:24have a full funeral,
02:25but to make that something more bespoke that both of them would have been, you know, happy with.
02:29What would you hope, more generally, for the future that Dian Matters Week is going to bring about?
02:36I would just hope that it opens conversations to families, that they will, you know, talk about it, they will
02:42discuss it,
02:44before it ever gets to the stage of somebody's actually poorly, that they'll open conversations at home.
02:50They can go and talk to the local independent funeral director.
02:54If they need more advice, they could always go to our website, which is handledwithcare.org.uk.
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