Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer

Product Information

This challenge is also present in Ashes to Admin, some people fall under Section 46 because they have fallen out with their ‘loved ones’. Highly recommended and despite the macabre sounding premise, it's one of the most optimistic and cheering books you could read. Her thoughts on life, dying, and death, and the relationship between them, are thought-provoking, heart-felt and compassionate. It is incredibly uplifting to read the stories of people who, on the outset, look like they have nobody left in the world to care about them, transform into people with well-attended funerals which many might envy. Sort of reminded me of this is going to hurt, in that it’s a tell-all diary of an occupation that in unrelentingly hectic and fascinating when observed up close.

Ashes to Admin London Month of the Dead - Ashes to Admin

Imagine a life without the presence of family or friends; you sadly pass away alone and your life remains unrecognised, neglected as if never to be heard again. I just finished the pages of Evie King’s Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer for a second time this year. Sadly it contains similar words, "causing the body to be cremated" and I suspect the person who did that may have a similar role to yourself. However, last year I discovered she had passed away early in 2022 and so sent for her death certificate.A kind of campaigning journalism written in the witty and waspish tone of the funniest woman in the workplace, it should be essential reading for policy makers. Sometimes you just know that you are going to love a book from the first few sentences and that was absolutely the case with Ashes to Admin. I occasionally organise online conversations with authors, and the one with Evie was particularly lovely with a wonderfully engaged audience.

Ashes to Admin by Evie King 9781915306302 Coles Books Ashes to Admin by Evie King 9781915306302 Coles Books

One thing I soon learned from reading this book is that Section 46 funerals are nothing like the dismal image of a pauper's funeral that I had in my head. It lifts the lid on the lives, and more importantly the deaths, of our country's forgotten people, dignifying them, and shaming our nation. The author works in England performing the duties that are performed in the US by county public administrators. A former stand up comedian, she has always written short form pieces in the margins of her various day jobs, contributing to New Humanist, Guardian Comment is Free, BBC Comedy and Viz Comic.

I wanted to read this book after hearing Evie King being interviewed on the radio; I thought she seemed like a lot of fun, and she had a very interesting job.

Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral

Sometimes tragic, as with the case of an unidentified woman found on a beach buried without even a name, but often uplifting and occasionally hilarious.

I'd never heard of the post of Council Funeral Officer before; but it sounded like a fascinating job, organising Section 46 funerals under the Public Health Act, ie, for people without the family and/or finances to cremate or bury them: although I do wonder how many CFOs perform their task in the way that Evie does.

Ashes to Admin — Dead Good Reading Ashes to Admin — Dead Good Reading

Evie works for her local council where she organises the funerals of those who have no family or whose family cannot afford to lay them to rest. This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Ultimately, Evie discovers that her job is more about life than it is about death, funerals being for the living and death being merely a trigger to rediscover a life and celebrate it against the odds. A sense of gallows humour is probably also necessary; but on occasion, King is a bit *too* jokey and inappropriate. She handles the funerals and final affairs of those who die without friends or families or anyone willing or able to make their final arrangements or settle their final affairs.There's no doubt that King's job can be emotionally tough and also hard on the olfactory system at times, but it's also clear that this is a fascinating and deeply rewarding career requiring a combination of skills, including those of a detective on occasion. I've learned a lot from this memoir (like, who knew you could bequeath your loyalty card points) and it's made me think a little more about my own inevitable demise. I've come across more than my fair share of faceless bureaucrats who have gone about their job with complete disdain for the people they are meant to help lately. Or to put it in simple terms; funerals for those with nobody around, willing or able to bury or cremate them. A downside to longevity that people sometimes don’t consider, and something that is striven for blindly in our life-at-all-costs culture.