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

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I picked this up on a whim after hearing the author on a podcast talking about the book and her job. 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. It is incredibly uplifting to read the stories of people who, on the outset, look like they have nobody left in the world to care about them, transform into people with well-attended funerals which many might envy. Knowing absolutely zero about council funerals aside from the negative term 'a paupers funeral' the subject matter of this book caught my eye. Evie is an Environmental Health worker, whose job is ensuring funerals are carried out where the funds aren't available either due to the family not being able to afford it, or indeed where no family exists.

A former stand up comedian, 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.

Evie works for her local council where she organises the funerals of those who have no family or whose family cannot afford to lay them to rest. IT's obvious, though, that she cares for what she is doing, that these are actually people, and that is the real strength of the book. Sometimes hard to handle, as an anxious person who usually relies on reading to relax and escape such worries, but made bearable and enjoyable with plenty of humour and memorable pearls of wisdom.

She is such a lovely, compassionate and interesting person and we were free to ask her any questions we wanted. Her book aims to tell the otherwise lost stories of those who have ended up in her care, smash that 3am anxiety about who will be there when we die and how many people will attend our funeral, encourage advanced planning, and invite us to rethink our ideas around life, death and legacy. The author works in England performing the duties that are performed in the US by county public administrators. Sort of reminded me of this is going to hurt, in that it’s a tell-all diary of an occupation that in unrelentingly hectic and fascinating when observed up close. Evie offers a fascinating and often amusing insight into an aspect of death that is universally feared.

In this talk, Evie lifts the coffin lid on the world of a council funeral officer, a job that lurches from the legislative and administrative, via the workaday and practical, right through to the emotional and existential.

The promoter, venue management and DesignMyNight accept no responsibility for any personal property. Evie King goes to great lengths to dispel any negative view points over what a section 46 funeral looks like and she goes even further to give the people handed into her care the kind of funeral we might all wish for.She doesn't always succeed, but it's heartening to see the lengths to which she goes and the effort she puts in. Reading Ashes to Admin encouraged me to fire off a whole host of questions to my Council's Bereavement Services Officer and I was very relieved to find out in response that, as in Evie's case, my local Council provides a celebrant and does their best to provide Section 46 funeral recipients with as many honoured wishes as possible. What I would like to know is if you were contacted now by a relative of one of these people whose certificates have your name on, who hadn't known of their death at the time, would you be able to tell them where the final resting place of their family member is or at least be able to tell them how to go about accessing the information? Had heard an interview on radio with Author that prompted me to get this book as ama Funeral Celebrant so useful to know this side of the stories - ie what happens when a deceased person has no-one.