19
Italics in the original.
20
The FAMSA Web site, www.funerals.org/famsa/chains.htm, posts a listing of chain-owned mortuaries, although the rapid rate of acquisitions makes it hard to keep up with the latest on who owns what.
21
Semantics Note: In England, “rest room” means a room in which to rest.
22
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.
23
“Memorial,” in the trade, means merchandise for sale—for instance, a headstone or plaque, a rose tree ($450), or other remembrance.
24
635 pounds at the exchange rate of $1.60.
25
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.
26
So-called protective caskets, having been heavily merchandised over the years, now outsell all other burial receptacles combined. Ask a funeral director why someone already dead will need protection, and he will, if he follows the manufacturer’s script, reply with severity, “To prevent alien and foreign objects from reaching your loved one.” There is one Southern mortician who, following his own drummer, has reduced the explanation to: “To keep bugs and critters out.” But as with any lucrative idea that has not been thought through, the casket manufacturers and the undertakers who serve as their exclusive distributors soon had to face up to the consequences. Protective caskets, which command substantially higher prices than those that are “unprotected,” achieve protection by using an impermeable, inexpensive rubber gasket as a sealing device. This causes a buildup of methane gas, a byproduct of the metabolism of anaerobic bacteria, which, thriving in an airless environment, have a high old time with the contents of the sealed casket. Exploding-casket episodes occurred with sufficient frequency to induce Batesville, the acknowledged leader in the field, to design a new line of protective caskets to deal with the crisis. A “permeable” seal is used, which lets the accumulated gases leak—or “burp”—out, to prevent the buildup of gas that causes the lids to blow off (and the appalled relatives to go to court).
