TEMA: Generation Jesus
The silent goodbye - funeral that have no visitors is getting more common
The loneliness epidemic is not only affecting the people alive, but also the people that have passed. Funerals that have no visitors have been more and more common globally. In the UK is one in five of every funeral is without service or mourners.
“It might be that families are dispersed. So it is rather convenient to have a funeral with nobody there because it doesn't leave anybody out,” says Douglas Davies, professor in the study of religion, Durham university.
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The problem with loneliness is for many scientists a growing epidemic in society. Technology, elder care, the pandemic, rising cost of living and that we are less dependent on eachother to survive is probably just some of the reasons to why it’s increasing. To increase the efficiency of getting people in the ground, new types of cremation services and companies have started. And is growing with a high pace. Today, cremations account for about 25% of all funerals in the UK.
“Just before Covid, a company was set up in the UK to deliver funerals without ceremony. And it's now advertised nearly every day on the main channels on the television. Very common,” says professor Douglas Davies.
Covid was a major factor
He explains that covid was a major factor given the fact that the British government only allowed a few people to attend funerals. He resembles that it was accidental yet ironic that that company was set up just before Covid to engage in this kind of cremation. He continues to add that he have visited the site and he saw the process take place.
“It's just cremation. They pick up bodies from all over the UK. They take them down to that site. They cremate them there. They send the ashes, the cremated remains, back to the families by personal delivery,” he says.
Funeral ceremonies are also a changing matter. Religious and traditional rituals are declining and the UK have seen a increase in so called public health funerals which is now over four thousand per year. The Local Government Association states that the most common reason for public health funerals was “a lack of family or friends to provide a funeral”. Professor Kate Woodthorpe at the University of Bath says that it may have something to do with people's sense of obligation to one another. This is something she believes was much stronger in the past.
“I think that's really changing. People don't have that sense of duty to strangers, even family members,” Kate concludes.
