Over the years as a funeral director Jonathan has seen some memorable moments. One involved the passing of a woman who had no immediate family members to celebrate her life. A friend organised her funeral and wanted to have ‘bucket loads’ of daffodils to festoon the chapel, with hundreds of balloons to be released at the conclusion of the service. Fortunately it was spring, but Jonathan had to admit it was a challenge to find so many daffodils at short notice. He was able to meet the request by providing 13000 daffodils. “It is a great compliment to me when family members feel they have had a load lifted, by having someone else take control and make things so much easier for them. Managing to meet more challenging requests is the icing on the cake.”
One of the skills Jonathan has built over time is to intuitively gauge and understand people’s needs in the first instance of a meeting. “Picking up on personalities and the general feel families want reflected in the proceedings is something I work hard on and value.” For this reason Jonathan particularly likes to keep close to his Darfield community, getting involved in local projects and getting to know people within his neighbourhood.
