Explainer
Change
Death & life
6 min read

Dealing with death – why the fuss?

“No fuss” cremations are getting more popular. Not giving a formal space or process to say goodbye feels like a seismic cultural shift to Jane Cacouris. Part of the How To Die Well series.

Jane Cacouris is a writer and consultant working in international development on environment, poverty and livelihood issues.

A sculpture shows mourning women raising hands and fists to the sky.
The Tragedy of the Sea memorial in Matosinhos, a Portuguese port.
Prilfish, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Widow’s Rip is a notorious swirl of ocean just offshore from Nazaré, a centuries-old fishing village on Portugal’s windy and unpredictable Atlantic coast. Decades ago fishermen used oxen to pull brightly painted boats onto the beach and then rowed into the giant waves. Many lost their lives when the seas were rough. I first visited Nazaré with my Portuguese grandmother as a child and stayed in a fisherwoman’s house with an orange-tiled roof just off the central square. My eyes had to adjust to the gloom every time we went inside as she kept all of the shutters drawn. Even though it was thirty degrees outside, I remember her tanned, crumpled face shrouded in a black shawl that covered her head and shoulders. She wore a black knee length skirt with an array of petticoats and black shoes. As a ten-year-old, I was a little scared. I asked my grandmother when the fisherwoman’s husband had died. “About twenty-five years ago at sea”, she said. She explained it would be a sign that you didn’t love your late husband if you didn’t wear black for the rest of your life.  

Nowadays, although fishing is still a livelihood for some who live there, Nazaré is known for its sweeping beach and touristy promenade of restaurants, bars and stalls selling Portuguese wares. But the widows, now very old ladies, who lost their husbands to the sea all those years ago still potter around the town dressed head to toe in black. An ingrained tradition of how to grieve.

No other event in our life brings us closer to facing questions of mortality and eternity than the death of a loved one.

Grief and how we deal with the loss of a loved one is of course deeply personal and expressed differently depending on so many things; culture, beliefs, personality, life experience, to name a few. But in recent years, there has been a defined shift in British society away from some of the traditions that have historically accompanied death.  

The growing trend for direct or “no fuss” cremations is an example of this shift, with a rise from 3 per cent of all cremations in 2019 to 18 per cent in 2022 according to a life insurance company’s recent report. A traditional cremation includes a service at the crematorium or place of worship beforehand, whereas a direct cremation does not have a service. Instead, the deceased is taken directly to be cremated with no one in attendance, unless witnesses ask to be present. A simple coffin is used, and the timing of the cremation is determined by the funeral director, usually according to availability.  

Why are families choosing to cut out the funeral?  

Sources point to a range of reasons. A matter of choice – perhaps a statement of faith that the afterlife is not about funeral rituals, or conversely, that there is no afterlife, and the body will just decompose organically and be subsumed back into the Earth so why make a fuss? It can be for practical reasons such as cost; traditional funeral services are much more expensive than a simple cremation, estimated to be approximately £2,500 cheaper. A “no fuss” cremation can also reduce the likelihood of family division or arguments over the type of ceremony. Or family living in different locations geographically means a memorial service scheduled for a more convenient time can be organised.  

All these reasons seem perfectly valid. But not giving a formal space or process to say goodbye does feel like a seismic cultural shift, even for the British, known for our ability to keep our feelings under wraps. Practical reasons aside, are we ducking the emotion that inevitably hits us when we lose someone we love? Or perhaps avoiding the difficult questions that come with death? No other event in our life brings us closer to facing questions of mortality and eternity than the death of a loved one.  

On holiday in Nazaré in his youth, my father remembers a fisherman’s death in the house where he was staying. The night before the funeral - with the deceased laid out in the dining room - each of the women in the family took it in turns to sit in the corridor outside, the top skirt of their seven petticoats over their head, wailing in an outpouring of grief so raw that they couldn’t continue for more than a couple of hours. The “wailing process” carried on throughout the night, the role passing from woman to woman until sunrise. Not only was the loss of the fisherman the loss of their beloved, it was also the loss of a working partnership - the women sold the fish that the men brought home – and the loss of the family’s livelihood and income. The wailing was a necessary part of expressing this agony ahead of the funeral service when the rest of the family would come together to support each other.  

There are also intensely reverent traditions observed with death in Portugal, particularly within the Catholic church. The burial or cremation is usually no more than three days after the person has died. When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, her body was laid in an open casket in a room of the Catholic church in the mountain village in rural Portugal where she had lived most of her life. The night before the funeral, a procession of people visited her to pay their last respects, including distant family members, whilst my immediate family sat with her all night. People touched her arm or hand, and sat and chatted to one another. After Mass the following day, her coffin lined with lead was sealed and she was taken to the family Mausoleum to be laid beside my grandfather, along with the remains of around thirty of our relatives dating back to the early 1900s.  

Brazil, where we lived for several years, has many similarities to Portugal in dealing with death. The time between death and burial or cremation is even faster, usually within twenty-four hours. Family and friends rapidly gather, usually together with the body of the loved one in an open casket. Touching and kissing the body and wailing over it is not uncommon. According to a Brazilian friend, “Bebendo do morto” which means “drinking to the dead” is an old custom where family members raise a final glass of Cachaça, a traditional drink, to the deceased in the presence of their body.  

A funeral service is partly about taking a look back at our loved one’s jigsaw of life, at all the pieces that have slotted together to make up their precious and unique time on Earth.

In all these traditions, the funeral service acts as the closure to the first “phase” of grief, and the passing of the deceased into God’s care. The next phase is then the more private continuation of grief for months or years to come.  

Christians believe in life after death based on a conviction that as Jesus rose from the dead, so will we. A funeral service is partly about taking a look back at our loved one’s jigsaw of life, at all the pieces that have slotted together to make up their precious and unique time on Earth. Of course, there are damaged and missing pieces, but Christians believe that the jigsaw will be made whole and perfect in Heaven with Jesus. It is also a chance to give thanks for the the life of a human being wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. 

Regardless of the country, the culture or the tradition, the death of someone we love means that our world will never be the same again. It will continue spinning without them and we have to get used to that. The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says: 

 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die”.  

Death is an entire season; not only the end of the existence of a human on Earth who was created and loved by God, but a prolonged period of growth and change for those of us left behind.  

Death deserves us to make a fuss.  

  

Article
Character
Community
Economics
4 min read

Local businesses can love their neighbours, here’s how

The powerful partnerships quietly transforming Britain's towns
A knitted post box topper shows a group of people and the word powerhouse.
Celebrating Didcot's Powerhouse group.

In just three years, an Oxfordshire market town has cracked a code that's eluded community development experts for decades. The Didcot Powerhouse Fund has delivered £400,000 in grants to nearly 9,000 residents, proving that when local businesses and civic leaders work together, they can achieve remarkable results. 

Didcot's success is all the more remarkable given its context. Surrounded by world-class science campuses and the prosperity they bring, the town is simultaneously home to pockets of serious social and economic deprivation. This stark inequality demanded a fresh model for corporate giving – one that could bridge the gap between the wealth generated by cutting-edge research facilities and the struggling families living in their shadow. 

The fund's approach offers a blueprint for addressing one of Britain's most persistent challenges: how to harness private sector resources for genuine community benefit. Within five months of launching, it had generated £100,000 in grants. By year three, it had distributed 70 grants across Greater Didcot's 46,000 residents, tackling everything from domestic abuse support to youth skills training. 

What makes Didcot remarkable isn't just the money – it's the method. The fund, chaired by Oxfordshire Deputy Lieutenant Elizabeth Paris, doesn't simply write cheques. It convenes businesses, charities, local government and faith leaders in the same room, mapping community needs and systematically filling gaps. This year's annual impact event, hosted by the European Space Agency, drew 160 guests who would rarely otherwise meet. 

This model represents a fundamental shift from traditional corporate social responsibility. Rather than companies making isolated charitable donations, the Didcot approach creates sustained partnerships that leverage professional networks, legal expertise and grant-writing skills alongside financial resources. 

The success reflects a broader civic renewal happening across Britain, much of it led by the country's 5.5 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Across the UK, these businesses are showing what it means to contribute not just economically, but socially, to their local communities. They do so quietly — through their skills, relationships, and a belief in stewardship. 

Last winter, fuel-allowance reductions left many families wondering how to heat their homes. In East Yorkshire, a coalition of community groups supported by an SME mobilised at speed, distributing thousands of pounds in emergency vouchers. Similar efforts in Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire reached nearly 300 residents with targeted help. These acts made all the difference close to home. 

SMEs employ 60 per cent of the UK workforce, but their real power lies in their embeddedness within local communities. They understand local needs in ways that distant corporations or central government cannot. And SMEs, as groups of individuals united by a common purpose, have the unique ability to be good neighbours in the communities they serve. The most effective business leaders understand that creating real value comes from cooperation – from working alongside others to meet shared needs.  

Successful SMEs engage actively with their local communities because doing so helps them understand the people they serve, earns trust, and provides services that genuinely matter. This requires spending time with people, asking thoughtful questions, and recognising that local relationships are central to resilience.  

Through my role as Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, alongside our team of 40 Deputy-Lieutenants, I witness this transformation first-hand. We engage with tens of thousands of people annually and can report that this quiet civic renewal is both important and accelerating. 

From the Isle of Wight, where former vehicle technician Jan retrained as an energy retrofit assessor to help neighbours cut bills and carbon emissions, to East Yorkshire, where community groups and local firms mobilised to distribute emergency fuel vouchers, SMEs are proving themselves to be critical civic actors. 

The most striking example may be Inveraray on Scotland's west coast, where the historic Local Pier had been shuttered for a decade. A local charity, supported by regional SMEs, raised over £275,000 across seven funding bids. The pier reopened in April 2024, now hosting monthly farmers' markets. As Linda Divers, Chair of Inveraray Community Council, said at the ribbon-cutting: "That vote of confidence turned a dream into reality." 

This matters because trust – the foundation of effective community action – is built through personal relationships. A 2023 King's College London study found that 98 per cent of UK residents trust people they know personally. SMEs, rooted in their communities, are uniquely positioned to nurture and leverage this trust. 

Parliament is taking notice. The Business and Trade Committee has launched an inquiry into what small firms need to thrive, with Chair Liam Byrne calling them "the engine room of growth and our biggest employer." 

The potential is enormous. Imagine businesses helping food banks become comprehensive community hubs. Picture digital skills clinics helping charities navigate AI-ready grant applications. Envision hundreds more professionals like Jan, retrained into green jobs that serve both local communities and environmental goals. 

The Didcot model shows this isn't utopian thinking – it's happening now. What's needed is recognition that the story is changing: from businesses as standalone economic actors to businesses as community builders, aligned with local purpose. 

At its heart, this kind of community investment reflects a deep, shared commitment to neighbourly love – not as a sentiment, but as a practical responsibility. To be a good neighbour is to recognise the inherent worth in every person, and to act with generosity, care, and purpose.  

It even calls us to see one another not as strangers or competitors, but as people closely connected, each carrying something of the same human dignity and potential. This recognition demands action: to build relationships that endure, to work for the good of all, and to strengthen the ties that bind communities together. 

The work of SMEs and local leaders across the UK embodies these values, offering a powerful example of faith in action within public life. In an era of declining social capital and institutional trust, it offers hope that Britain's communities will continue to build themselves from the ground up. We should celebrate it – and help it grow. 

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