Funny Funerals!

Welsh funeral directors offer services with comedy music and scattering ashes using fireworks.

17:35 14 October 2015

BBC One Wales' A Very Welsh Undertaking, a four-part programme, features funny funerals that gently usher tradition into the 21st Century.

 

The programme features Welsh funeral directors and their services designed to make the occasion anything but dull, dreary affair. They help mourners feel comfortable at the send off of their loved ones with comedy music and by scattering ashes using fireworks.

 

Funeral director Gareth Jenkins, of the Baglan Funeral Home, in Neath Port Talbot, said: "It's so important that the last memory they [mourners] have of somebody is a pleasant one and any little thing that we can do to make that special, we have to do.”

 

Gemma O'Driscoll, of GE O'Driscoll and Daughters, in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, said that she’ll do just about anything to make the occasion memorable and fun for those who were left behind.

 

"If the family want me to wear a onesie, I wear a onesie - if the family want me head-to-toe in pink, I'll wear pink," she said.

 

"To see a room full of people smiling and laughing during the funeral service is really something quite different," she said.

"There's definitely a change toward more of this kind of thing and I think we'll see much greater change going forward."