This guide to funerals and bereavement is written by Sam Weller, who has been involved with undertaking and memorial businesses and who edits a newsletter called ABA Information. The book contains five pages on bereavement, 29 pages of ads, some useful information on traditional funerals and some perfunctory information on alternatives, such as for times when a family wishes to organise the funeral themselves.
There is a somewhat biased section on woodland burials, which repeats some of the criticisms, part sane, part less so, which Sam Weller makes in his newsletter - and which were rebutted in print by Ken West and John Bradfield. Nevertheless, Sam Weller continues to distribute his criticisms as a supposedly authoritative ABA leaflet. It makes for an interesting debate, so here below is a summary of his point of view, followed by Ken West's response (see also Ken West's previous item above, which also answers some of Weller's points).
Sam Weller, ABA Information, 139 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SU (tel 020 7937 0052; fax 020 7937 1393).
Much of Weller's critique is incorrect and bears little resemblance to the true situation.
Firstly, reference to "woolly green enthusiasts" is insulting to people like myself. I am part of a group of customers interested in a new 'environmental' product. We seek a way of integrating modern living with a death, that proves helpful rather than harmful to the environment. To suggest that we are "idealists" with "visions of a rural idyll" is absurd. I am surprised that a writer purporting to represent trade interests could insult a group of customers. My marketing training suggests that we should be meeting needs, not abusing those who think differently to ourselves.
The success of woodland burial has surprised me, as has the profile of customers. They come from all walks of life, and have a variety of needs. These range from environmental concerns, through to control of the funeral, reducing costs and creating something new and vibrant from their death, in the form of a tree. Many are not so much choosing woodland burial as making a statement about the alternatives, which they find unacceptable. They comment about the pollution of cremation, the waste of resources in conventional coffins, the high cost of memorials which offer little artistic or social history value, and the commercialism of funerals generally. A surprising number refer back to their childhood and how they hated the concept of creating a memorial shrine, which generated routine cemetery visits. The professionals involved with funerals and memorials ignore these issues at their peril. The green movement did not generate these responses, they are simply responding to them.
Some of the comments in the article are untrue. Wicker coffins placed underground do not sprout and neither do cardboard coffins sag, bow, or spring open. Trees, of course, already exist over graves all over our cemeteries. They blow over occasionally but I have yet to see a body exposed or any offence caused. It is also a mistake to relate do-it-yourself funerals to the woodland concept, rather than to the cremation that most of these people choose.
The technical observations are also wrong. The water situation is much better with woodland burial. Firstly, with burial closer to the surface, the body decomposes naturally and much faster, with less opportunity for the 'mechanical' removal of body tissue into the watercourses. Secondly, with more ground cover, including trees, precipitation is retained and filtered in the surface vegetation, just as nature intended. On lawn graves, the opposite happens and rainfall passes over the body fairly immediately, removing material and potentially carrying it to any nearby watercourse. Finally, long-term care is not a problem as the management costs are minimal with no memorial safety problem, no intensively maintained lawns and few roads or hard landscaping.
The benefits of woodland cannot be overstated, particularly in the urban setting. The latest Environment Agency report on the North West, and the current government White Paper called A Better Quality of Life stress the need for more trees and native meadow. Trees reduce pollution by locking up carbon and filtering air. The health of our children will rely on us growing more. Long-term, of course, trees improve soils. Our woodland graves, in perhaps four hundred years - a pinprick in time - will offer timber, and if people need to clear it, some of the richest farmland on earth. To suggest that we are sterilising the land flies against the fact that our finest English farmland came from oak woodland.
Finally, the article suggests that a wild flower meadow is more suitable. I harbour the suspicion that this means more suitable for the placement of memorials! I agree with the principle, yet the practicalities are immense. The view that you can somehow maintain new lawns as short grass, trodden out by visitors, and see it become valuable wildflower meadow in the future simply does not work. In Carlisle, our immensely valuable wild flower areas are on Victorian sections, along with meadow brown butterfly colonies and grasshoppers. Once you routinely mow these areas, you destroy the insects, bats, voles and owls. You cannot compromise on these issues. The majority of people buying and placing a memorial do not want this compromise. They want mown lawns and neatness - and, characteristically, they do not understand the social and environmental costs of unsustainable intensive maintenance.
I have no idea what will happen in the future, but some trends are appearing. Woodland burial is proving financially profitable, cemeteries with intensively mown lawns are not. Both the Audit Commission and District Audit recognise this fact and, I believe, will force us to increase the costs of intensively maintained lawn graves. In addition, people are being asked to take responsible decisions through Agenda 21, to create sustainable communities. Woodland burial meets these needs, giving us life-saving trees and no financial liabilities. Those of us who have experience of the unsustainable Victorian cemetery problems understand what this means, and we will not hand onerous maintenance liabilities over to our children.
Woodland burial is such a new concept that we are learning constantly. It can, as stated in the article, pose problems in design, tree thinning and at times items being left on graves. But as we learn, management techniques evolve and improve. Also, it may not be suited to heavily populated areas with little land. But there is ample land outside the cities. The fact is, woodland burial will not fail whilst we are unable to offer low fuel, emission-free cremation or forms of burial that are sustainable, low cost and not harmful to the environment.
People who think choose the woodland concept, and they are the trend setters. They also have the government, Agenda 21, the Environment Agency, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Death Centre and many others in support. Mock, if you dare!
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