The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [130]
So far, SCI’s entry into the British funeral industry, as in the case of Mettam’s, poses little threat to the Wakelys. Philip Wakely said that although the new American presence is “kind of scary,” it “has only affected us from a distress point of view,” as people read about SCI in the papers and assume that all funeral directors operate like them.
* Semantics Note: In England, “rest room” means a room in which to rest.
* When the above was written some thirty years ago, it seems likely that the writer was more than slightly enamored of “Mr. Ashton,” who is treated with such respect that his first name is never revealed. But as the calendar leaves float by, and with them the members of the Ashton family as they depart, their nine mortuaries are, in the mid-1980s, scooped up by none other than Howard Hodgson, the “yuppie undertaker,” and in turn by Plantsbrook, and then in 1994 by SCI. Ashton prices are now the highest in the relatively downscale areas in which they do business; they have run afoul of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which has ordered them to divest two of their eight mortuaries. O tempora! O mores! Which translates roughly to “What a falling off was there!”
* “Memorial,” in the trade, means merchandise for sale—for instance, a headstone or plaque, a rose tree ($450), or other remembrance.
* 635 pounds at the exchange rate of $1.60.
* Action by the government to implement the recommendations of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) was delayed for some months by SCI’s application for judicial review. When the application was rejected by the High Court, the minister for corporate and consumer affairs was able to announce, on December 18, 1996, that he had accepted “undertakings from SCI which follow closely the MMC’s original recommendation,” and that they would instruct all its branches throughout the U.K. to disclose SCI’s ownership of their premises.
18
Press and Protest
For as long as anyone now alive can remember, our traditional American way of caring for and remembering the dead has been subjected to criticism.
—American Funeral Director, June 1961
To hear the funeral men complain about the bad press they get, one might think they are the target of a huge newspaper and magazine conspiracy to defame and slander them, to tease them and laugh at them, and eventually to ruin them.
Actually, they have not fared too badly. There have been—from time to time—documented exposés of the funeral trade in national magazines of large circulation; occasional short items in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, and the like; and a few feature stories in metropolitan newspapers.
Industry leaders spend an enormous amount of time worrying over these articles. Criticism, and how to deal with it; projected magazine articles, and how to get them suppressed; threatened legislation, and how to forestall it—these are their major preoccupations. If all else fails, they snarl at the world from the pages of the funeral trade press, like angry dogs behind a fence unable to get to grips with the enemy.
Two articles, published a decade apart, caused particular consternation and alarm within the industry: “The High Cost of Dying” by Bill Davidson, which appeared in Collier’s magazine in May 1951, and “Can You Afford to Die?” by Roul Tunley, in the Saturday Evening Post of June 17, 1961.
The Davidson piece very nearly triggered a major upset for the funeral industry, at least in California. It was the most comprehensive statement on the industry that had thus far appeared; it was detailed and well documented;