Funeral home urges Sussex to plan ahead

A funeral home is urging people to plan ahead after recent research revealed the majority of Sussex has yet to make funeral plan.

The figures published by Co-op Funeralcare show as many as 83 per cent of adults in the region haven’t created a funeral plan and over a third (35 per cent) haven’t communicated their funeral wishes to anyone.

To encourage people to make plans the funeral home will be visiting South of England County Show at the Showground in Ardingly West from Thursday, June 9 until Saturday, June 11.

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Jack Walsh head of operations for The Co-operative Funeralcare said: “Our presence at this year’s County Show is something we felt was important in breaking the taboo of discussing death by showing that a funeral truly can be a celebration of a person’s life.”

“Talking about funerals isn’t something that people naturally bring up, but we hope that the visually striking options on our stand help to encourage visitors to open up about their funeral wishes in the relaxed environment of the show. Hopefully the conversations that happen this weekend will leave people with a little less doubt about what their loved one would want.”

Seeking to close the gap in end of life planning, Co-op’s stand will feature alternative hearses such as the Land Rover, Tandem cycle and 1953 Vauxhall hearses, as well as a range of other funeral options.

The funeral home says it hopes the stand will help to encourage visitors to share and discuss their funeral wishes in addition to raising awareness of the many options for funerals.

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Further research from the Co-op commissioned ahead of the show found three quarters of adults in Sussex know whether they would want a burial or a cremation, but over half (51 per cent) haven’t told anyone.

When asked about whether they knew what their partners would want, 44 per cent said they knew exactly what they wanted, over a quarter (27 per cent) said they thought they knew but had not been told, while a further 16 per cent weren’t sure and 13 per cent had no idea.

The research also found more than quarter of those who had taken on responsibility for arranging a loved one’s funeral worried they had made the wrong choices afterwards.

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