About Me

"Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"

Monday 8 March 2010

Dying to move to Dulwich!

Was down at the funeral directors today, setting up the next one. I must have noticed this before but it had never struck so loud and clear - the coffins were named after local suburbs, and the prices reflect almost precisely the average property values in each area.

So the cheapest plywood , MDF and plastic handle job might be the "Catford" coffin, while your fur-lined, solid walnut with ebony and blond oak inlay & solid brass handles with leather stiched handle covers could well be the "Dulwich Village".

Harold and Maud - Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon in Hal Ashby's 1971 classic in the dark funeral humour category


Was also surprised that the eco-freak option, the wicker basket casket, is almost as expensive as your St John's Wood polished rosewood job - I would imagine this is the "Stoke Newington" of the casket trade?

Oddly, I'd imagined this sort of thing had died out in the 1960s. Why had I not realised that of course it came back stronger and stronger in each succeeding decade, in the form of the property booms, postcode and suburb-name snobbery? Estate and funeral agents - catch the synergy! First you gentrify a district, then you sell them more expensive coffins!