How to prepare for a pandemic? This time last year, this was the first time that this question arose. How to prepare for a pandemic resulting in the death of over 100 000 people within the short space of a year? This is what the government had to prepare for at the onset of the pandemic, identifying several grizzly temporary storage facilities to house the recently departed. The UK’s first Covid related death occurred on the 5th of March 2020 and since then, the death toll has risen to more than that experienced in the whole of World War 2. While government went about sourcing land and storage options, funeral directors Datchet and homes around the country found themselves in the unforeseen role of first-line responders, working in the face of those paying the ultimate price and contributing to devastating mass trauma, with their lives.
Situated across the UK, the over 40 Lodge Brothers funeral homes, prepared for unknown challenges with the goal of ensuring that each and every funeral be performed with the same dignity of any funeral prior to the pandemic. As the death toll rose 19% higher than in the last decade (The Guardian Today), equating to around 90,000 more funerals in 2020 than in recent years, Lodge Brothers Funeral Directors Roehampton remained, and still remain, open and offering the same range of services as before the pandemic, while adhering to government’s legal requirements for funerals during the pandemic.
It has been reported that Britain has had more deaths per capita than any other country in the world (US News) leaving the funeral industry reeling as the sheer number of funerals increasing by a third per day … a never-ending line of families bringing their dearly departed to us for burial or cremation. In an industry focused on service to the community, it is a treasured ethos by Lodge Brothers funeral directors Langley that each burial and cremation be performed with the respect that each person deserves at the end of life.
Those who have passed are reported, on a daily basis in statistic formats however, to the loved ones of the deceased, that stat is their father, their mother, their sister, uncle, daughter, baby and is more important than just a, albeit frightening, number.
By now, most communities, work places, families and other macro and micro socio-groups, know of someone who has passed away from Covid-19, even if indirectly. Hundreds of thousands have been directly affected. Lodge Brothers fully appreciates that each individual person who has passed, has affected the lives of many and that their memory means more than words can explain to all of those who stand in witness to their death. A sense of global sadness is almost palpable as we experience loss after loss of loss… a tragedy in action with no end date in sight.
Our Lodge Brothers Funeral Directors Isleworth remain open Monday to Friday with telephone access on a 24 hour basis, to provide advise and guidance for families who are struggling with the usual burial aspects under most unusual circumstances.
