ABSTRACT
The functions of a funeral are several. Speaking with the bereaved in our small study we were made aware of the funeral’s importance as a public statement about the life of the deceased and as a final farewell for the survivors. But some services lamentably failed to do justice to the life of the deceased. Rather than feeling supported and comforted, some mourners were left disappointed and troubled by the funeral as well as by their loss. For close relatives the funeral marks the beginning of a new period in their lives. If it fails to mark both the uniqueness of the loss and its communality, the task of those grieving must be made that much more difficult. Numerous social changes, such as dying in institutions rather than at home, amalgamations and reorganisation in funeral directing, the popularity of cremation and the local authority’s relationship to cemeteries and crematoria, have combined with changes in family and neighbourhood composition and the part played by religion to help shape funerals which for many are far from satisfactory.
