Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer

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Ultimately, Evie discovers that her job is more about life than it is about death, funerals being for the living and death being merely a trigger to rediscover a life and celebrate it against the odds. What happens if you die without family or money? The answer to this very three-in-the-morning question is that Evie, or someone like her, will step in and arrange your funeral. Evie is a local council worker charged with carrying out Section 46 funerals under the Public Health Act. Or to put it in less cold, legislative language; funerals for those with nobody around, willing or able to bury or cremate them. I thus experienced first-hand the magic of the work that Evie King does. Evie King works for her local council and part of her job is to carry out funerals under Section 46. It is not a given that there are people available to organise a funeral after someone dies, but legally in the UK councils are responsible when no-one is available. People are not just thrown in a ditch and forgotten. Hey. An update on [name], who you put in touch with me. I got a response from the person on the death cert and got a response with the exact location of the scattering, along with a full eulogy! Thought you would want to know x. Evie King also struggles with her role and emotions in all of this. What is she supposed to feel, or not, in relation to the people she is organising funerals for? With every death some sort of relationship is formed, and some cases, like the burial of someone with learning difficulties, hit closer to home than others.

Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a - WHSmith

When few details are known about the deceased, King then embarks on a search for any existing family, friends, colleagues, documentation, etc who can shed light on the dead person's life and thereby help her to tailor the funeral service to what the deceased would have liked, or what seems the most appropriate and pleasing. Where this becomes impossible is when either the deceased has no apparent family or their identity is unknown. This is where King comes into her own, setting out on a mission to find out whatever she can about them, using all the means at her disposal and some inspired methods of her own. She doesn't always succeed, but it's heartening to see the lengths to which she goes and the effort she puts in. For further proof of the nature of the book, consider the reviewers chosen and whose comments are printed on the covers and inside the book:New Sports Biographies and Autobiographies: Gift a Book for the Sports Fan In Your Life this Christmas King's book is enlightening for readers in respect of what a "Council Funeral" actually entails. One of her cases is that of a man whose family, are in receipt of benefits, as was he, and who are devastated by the thought that their loved one will receive only a cheap, perfunctory send-off because even collectively they couldn't afford anything more. In fact, the reassuring truth is that a Section 46 funeral may have fewer frills than other funerals, but it is still every bit as respectful and dignified.

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Another criticism put forward by Woodthorpe is the notion of ‘loved ones’ - not everyone is loved and not everyone is on good terms with their so-called ‘loved ones’. This challenge is also present in Ashes to Admin, some people fall under Section 46 because they have fallen out with their ‘loved ones’. Evie King is the pen name of Christina Martin. She is a former stand up comedian and a part-time writer. She has always written short form pieces, in the margins of her various day jobs, contributing to New Humanist, Guardian Comment is Free, BBC Comedy and Viz Comic. Since moving to the seaside and going part-time she has had more time for writing which has accumulated in Ashes to Admin. Diane (Philomena Cunk) Morgan: "A fascinating, poignant, and funny insight into the slightly macabre world of a Council Funeral Officer."

As we drove away I thought about all of the atypical types of grief and mourner I had come across so far, so different from the pre-conceived familial norms. Care home staff, neighbours, garden club members, local bus drivers. There were a thousand ways to be mourned, the benchmark didn’t have to be weeping spouses or devastated children” Read on for a remarkable discovery into our world of mourning and sorrow through King’s compassionate words! As she learns on the job, her story is told through a series of case studies, from bodies discovered at home, to deaths in care homes, and on through to the outbreak of Covid, this is an insight into the way death is dealt with on a political and personal level. Where care homes have agreements with funeral homes, where families are embarrassed because they can't pay for a loved one's funeral, and the care a council can give. The idea of a paupers' funeral, even now, gives pause.

Ashes to Admin by Evie King 9781915306302 Coles Books Ashes to Admin by Evie King 9781915306302 Coles Books

I am asking because my dad was estranged from his sister, my aunt, who I never met. He had wanted to see her again when he was dying but I didn't know how to find her. However, last year I discovered she had passed away early in 2022 and so sent for her death certificate. Sadly it contains similar words, "causing the body to be cremated" and I suspect the person who did that may have a similar role to yourself. I would like to know where my aunt's final resting place is. I have this slight concern of what if her ashes are unclaimed somewhere. I just want to know she's been laid to rest properly somewhere and to feel she is at peace. It isn't your name on the certificate but I thought you may be able to advise/help me” Death is a great motivator and, ironically, life coach’ there is so much truth in this. Personally, the more that I’ve spent time considering my mortality and preparing for it, the more I realise what I want to acheive.

Summary

I wanted to read this book after hearing Evie King being interviewed on the radio; I thought she seemed like a lot of fun, and she had a very interesting job. I'd never heard of the post of Council Funeral Officer before; but it sounded like a fascinating job, organising Section 46 funerals under the Public Health Act, ie, for people without the family and/or finances to cremate or bury them: although I do wonder how many CFOs perform their task in the way that Evie does. Moving out of London to the seaside, Evie found herself needing a job, and ended up working for a local council. Sometimes tragic, as with the case of an unidentified woman found on a beach buried without even a name, but often uplifting and occasionally hilarious. Ultimately, Evie discovers that her job is more about life than it is about death, funerals being for the living and death being merely a trigger to rediscover a life and celebrate it against the odds. King talks about her early days in the job, and with each case, we see her expertise and knowledge developing and growing. She learns how to become immune to the "smell of death" to maggots in months'-old food and, in the process, realises that she possesses a talent for organising respectful funerals for the dispossessed dead. Evie's memoir of a life spent organising what were until recently still known as 'pauper's funerals' is by turns hilarious and heartfelt. It lifts the lid on the lives, and more importantly the deaths, of our country's forgotten people, dignifying them, and shaming our nation. It's a cliché, but I laughed and I cried and I realised I have wasted my life. A kind of campaigning journalism written in the witty and waspish tone of the funniest woman in the workplace, it should be essential reading for policy makers. I can't recommend this book enough. A Road To Wigan Pier for post-Brexit Britain. Poverty Porn in reverse, raising the spirits, dignifying the human experience, and demanding action'

Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Fu…

As is noted by radical undertaker Ru Callender in What Remains?, the UK funeral industry can be a expensive minefield. Ashes to Admin shows the consequences of the costly world of funerals. To be responsible for a funeral increasingly can cause people to get into debt. Funeral poverty is a growing issue, and can be one of the reasons why people will receive a Section 46 funeral; families can simply not afford it. A huge amount of shame comes with not being able to give family member a ‘proper’ send off. Ashes to Admin shows how precarious life and death can be. In a gentle and funny tone Evie King highlights both the bureaucracy and the humanity that is behind funerals organised under Section 46.

Customer reviews

One thing I soon learned from reading this book is that Section 46 funerals are nothing like the dismal image of a pauper's funeral that I had in my head. If the deceased has left behind documentation relating to their wishes concerning their committal, those wishes will be carried out: if there's no such information, or the deceased's identity is unknown, they will still receive a dignified send-off. Ultimately, she will not only explain her role but she will seek to reframe how we view those who end up with what was once called a pauper's funeral, and in turn reframe how we think about our own endings. She also keenly wants to impart the need for preparation and expression of wishes. Hopefully you will leave ready to write your will and live your life out from under the weighty shadow of legacy. Ashes to Admin lifts the coffin lid on some moving and unexpected personal life stories. Sometimes tragic, as with the case of an unidentified woman found on a beach buried without even a name, but often uplifting and occasionally hilarious. In Ashes to Admin, Evie shows, however, that very few people aren’t loved, but that mourners can take various shapes. The effect of people’s deaths can ripple far beyond the stereotypical expectation of family: