Pure Cremation is body disposal right?

Many traditional funeral directors are now also offering "direct cremation" using local council run crematoria. You don't have to deal with an impersonal online service.

Some may also offer, for an extra fee, having a limited number of attendees. In this case, you would know which day and at what time the cremation is taking place. With a non attending cremation, you may not be told which day the cremation will take place.

My husband died in June. He had no relatives other than a sister from whom he had been estranged for many years and I have few relatives on my side of the family. I chose to have a non attending direct cremation provided by a long established local family owned funeral directors who have a private crematorium in the grounds of their extensive woodland burial site, which is located a mile or so from my village.

They collected my husband's body from the hospital mortuary and it remained in their care for several days before the cremation took place. I was informed when they had taken him into their care.

I chose to have a biodegradable "shell" rather than a coffin. After the cremation, I was informed that it had taken place and I was able to book a time to collect the ashes, in person. Later this year, next year or when we feel ready, my adult son and I will scatter my husband's ashes in several places. There was also the option to have his ashes scattered in the woodland area and also an option for having a tree planted in his memory.

Being local and using the funeral director's private crematorium was more expensive than Pure Cremation or other online services but broadly comparable to the fee charged by local Co-op funeral directors and by other local directors for the same basic direct cremation service. It cost £1,650.

It brought some comfort to know that my husband's body was resting only a mile or so away in the days before the cremation and that the cremation took place at the same site rather than a body being transported to whichever unspecified crematorium an online service might be using. And it was still a very personal service with frequent communication with sympathetic staff from this local family funeral directors.

They would have met me at home or I could have travelled to their office to make the arrangements but I was able to make all arrangements over the phone and via email.

My DM hated funerals with a vengeance - she didn't go to my dad's nor to her sister's, nor either of her parents'. So we had a direct cremation for her organised by a local undertaker and we asked them to dispose of the ashes for us.

A little while after she died we held what we called "Grandma's After Party" - we had a gathering of friends and family where several people got up and spoke about her. We sang her favourite hymn and then when we marked her life doing what she loved best - chatting and eating cake.

We placed a massive order from Morrisons including a very large vanilla and strawberry victoria sponge. Unfortunately it was substituted with a pink iced princess celebration cake! We gave it pride of place with a photo of her beside it. It would have made her day!

I've been to a couple of funerals lately where the cremation has taken place with just immediate family before the church service which was interesting.

Yes it's just a direct cremation. We arranged my mum's through the local funeral directors. We had to pay extra to have her cremated at the local crematorium rather than a 100 miles away.
I was quite shocked she didn't want a funeral initially but my dad explained her reasons and he wants the same.
We had a private family service with a celebrant on the same day close by.
I have her ashes, you get them back!

All funerals are body disposal services. These just cut out paying funeral directors a fortune to parade a coffin about prior.

I agree. The funeral is for the grieving to give them a chance to remember the person who has died. I found organising my mother's and my brothers funerals painful but also very cathartic.
I think the deceaseds family and friends should do whatever they think will give them the most comfort because it's too late for the dead person to care

This annoyed me at my MIL's funeral. She'd been on her own for a few years and there were people turning up who all lived locally but none of them had ever bothered to visit her or ring to see how she was getting on. It was like they'd just come for the buffet and something to do, and a nose round her house. Similarly when my dad died abroad, in a country where it's all done very quickly, his family got a bit sniffy about the fact that he didn't have a "proper" funeral. I wouldn't have minded, but they hadn't been to see him for years, so we resented the fact that they were bothering us about it when we were still coping with his death. It was all just performative, which was something my dad couldn't stand. We have his ashes, and it gives us time to sort out a proper time when the immediate family can all be together, and to organise things without stress and hurry. I don't see anything disrespectful or sterile about that, and would be fine with the same myself.

I said to my sister about six months after mum dying "now I feel ready and able to consider the right sort of funeral" but we had of course already had it and I'd had to deal with most of it while also overseeing the estate, informing everyone, closing out medical and financial stuff, starting to think about probate, the house and will etc etc.
And I'd spent about nine months taking her to and from various medical appointments, and then three weeks sitting by her while she died.

A few months off at that point would have been nice. But she wanted a burial so we had to get on with it.

And I suspect getting elderly relatives there 6m after she died would have been nigh-on impossible, because "well, it's not actually a funeral, is it". Not that many came anyway.

So, there we go, it got done about three weeks after she died. It was OK, we had lobster and our very own barista, all compered by a stand up comedian -which she would have liked.

You are better using your local undertaker over these companies that advertise on TV.

They put the ashes in a tin?! 😆

It’s an unattended cremation, which is exactly what a usual cremation is. The body has to be cremated the same day but they don’t start doing it until
long after the mourners have left the chapel.

I work for a funeral directors. Yes direct cremations are just that. The body is taken to the crematorium and you get ashes back. Pure Cremations take the bodies to one central crematorium and they are all dealt with there.

As I say I only work for a funeral directors but my view is that for as long as humans have existed we have had ceremonies with the dead loved one there...it creates closure.

People make an effort to attend a funeral. They are widely published. I have known several later celebrations of life where, because of the fact its basically a private party, people who knew the deceased years before and wanted to go, didn't because they weren't invited. Plus if your love ones don't know the address of cousin Fred how can they invite him?

My mum had a direct cremation and it’s genuinely psychologically damaged me. I know that won’t be the case for everyone but it was very difficult for me feeling there was no closure or anything

Yes, it does save money as there is no service. You are informed of the time of cremation so you can raise a glass to them at that time, or have a wake at that time. The ashes are then brought to you maybe a week later, when the cremation has taken place.
I wasn't keen when this happened to a family member, as it just felt like the circle hadn't been closed if you see what I mean. There was talk of a wake a few weeks later after Christmas, but it just didn't happen. Just a non event really, and more than a little sad.

There isn't anything to stop people having a memorial and a wake - just not the coffin and service at the crematorium. Then people can get up and talk about the deceased and share stories, play music etc

Maybe even do this when the ashes are returned from a direct cremation and have the urn in place of a coffin

I sat with my Dad for most of the week when he died, and once he'd passed, I had no doubt that he was no longer my Dad.

How we disposed of his body made absolutely fack all difference to him or anyone else, come to it. I wasn't paying £5k for people he hadn't seen for 20 years to come and pay their respects (I'd been financially supporting him for years beforehand).

It is an unattended cremation.

My PILs and three of my own relatives have all had direct cremations. This was entirely their own choice (which I happened to agree with).

We did not use Pure Cremation, we used a local undertaker. Most undertakers offer direct cremations nowadays.

A PP questioned if things then feel unresolved - no, not at all.

I'm having a direct cremation myself when the time comes.

This is what i want ,my mums funeral was about £6000
It was what she wanted and what my Dad wanted for her and it was their money so fair enough
But i wouldnt the fuss or the expense
I think my Father in laws direct cremation was about £1500.

And some people (as I said) don't want hangers on, and faux mourners coming along who've had fuck-all to do with you since 1999, necking wine and beer and scoffing all the free food.

I appreciate the link, having told the family for years to put me in a cardboard box and straight into the crematorium, I hate fuss.

That said if I pre-deceased my parents, or my children wanted otherwise I won't be there to care and they can do what they want with their inheritance.

Funerals are purely for the living.

But some people have very little family and no friends left if they live to a ripe old age.

Horses for courses.

That's what I said, all cremations are body disposals! And I guess burials are too in their own way.

I guess they have just rebranded what used to be known as "direct" cremation, to "pure" cremation. My Dad had it and so will I.

Surely all funerals and cremations are just body disposal in different forms with fancier things around them, but essentially it’s a service to dispose of the body, whether you have horse and carriages towing you to a burial plot or a cremation with doves.
lotsbif older people I know want this as they have the view that they don’t want a ceremony, aren’t religious and just don’t really care what happens to their body when they are dead.

Dh and I having a direct cremation. I personally am never attending a traditional funeral service again.

Yes its a body disposal service, nothing more. My Sil decided to do this when my brother died. She insisted it was what he wanted, his death was a quick and unexpected so we (his siblings) will never know, he certainly never said anything like that to us. So his body was sent to be cremated with no one (not even Sil) present, no service, no family gathering, no chance to say goodbye. She requested not to have his ashes either. Its made processing his death more difficult.