In article , Mary
Fisher wrote:
I have no intention of going near any of thembut I imagine that
they'd all say that they were a centuries old faily business or the
Co-op ...

.... and I'd believe them as much as I believe Our Glorious Leader.

"Establised ...." and "family run" are pretty meaningless. Courtesy of
the OFT firms owned by Dignity plc (was SCI and before that Great
Southern/Hodgson/Kenyon) have to say so in their advertising and on
their premises. Before that you had the situation here in Twickenham
of two GSG owned firms advertising against one another to give the
impression of competition.

SCI, an American outfit, bought out GSG and Hodgson Kenyon in the
mid-1990's and were the subject of numerous media exposes thereafter
as the American bosses tried to make money by putting pressure on the
people at the sharp end (fancy a name and shame league table for
funeral arrangers - who sold the most/least last month?). Basically it
didn't work (apart from anything else the people being asked to act in
these ways really took exception to it) and the UK management bought
the business back from SCI renaming it as Dignity: from what I've
heard they've dropped the bad practices but are just more expensive
that most others.

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