Do you require a paper notice?

This is my opinion based on my 24 years' experience in the funeral service.

The death notice is placed in the Obituary or Death Notice section of the paper. It informs the public of the death of a person and of the funeral arrangements.

The first part of the notice may include;

• The date of death
• The age
• The circumstance (eg peacefully, suddenly) plus sometimes where the death occurred (eg at home, in hospital)
• Family members and their relationship to the deceased may also be mentioned
• The area that the deceased was from

The next section usually covers the funeral details (ie the venue date and time). Lastly the family’s special requests.

Traditionally notices included the term ‘Please accept this intimation’, which means anyone reading the notice is welcome to attend. If the deceased was Catholic, the notice may be structured with the starting term ‘Please pray for the repose of the soul’. These two traditions seem to have waned lately.

When I started in the funeral service, most families would chose to have a notice placed in the local paper, usually to run for one addition. A good proportion would also have an acknowledgement placed following the service. An acknowledgement allows the family to publicly express their appreciation for the help and support that was given up to and including the deceased’s death.

The advent of social media and the decline of newspaper sales has in my opinion led to changes in the placing of paper notices in this part of the world. Due to the improved methods of communication between family and friends some feel a paper notice is not necessary. The fact that some local papers are weekly and all have reduced circulation has endorsed the trend – even though some papers offer an online service to complement the publication of hard copy [see illustration from the Yorkshire Post].

The purpose of the death notice was to let people know of the death who would otherwise be hard to reach – such as distant family, friends and work colleagues. It seems a lot of elderly people still make it a habit to look over this section of the paper and still like to follow the tradition, but quite a few now scan online provision.

Social services and hospital bereavement offices will still place notifications if people die with no known family or friends.

Placing a notice

If a family want a death notice they can choose to do it for themselves or request the funeral director to do it on their behalf. The funeral director will usually help with the wording and give an estimate of cost.

It is a good idea to glance at previous copy before you place a notice as this will establish what is common practise. Some papers for example provide only lineage, others offer the choice of a box around the text. You sometimes have the choice of box decoration eg a rose, cross, scroll work. If available, these incur an extra cost.

Whoever places the notice with the paper is billed. The longer the notice and the more extras, the more expensive it will be.

The National papers are even more expensive, and it is for this reason that their death notices tend to be short.

The funeral director may have their own web pages and offer to put information out via Facebook or their own website.

Older generations tend to stick with tradition and many see the placing of a notice as part of the ritual of doing a funeral arrangement. This ritual may also include cutting out the paper clipping and keeping it with other memorabilia. I have known funeral directors acquire a copy of the paper and laminate the clipping on request but I am not sure if this is common practise.

Sympathy notices

Sympathy notices are placed in the Obituary section, usually under the main death notice when possible. They include a personal message and sometimes a short poem.

In the past I have placed as many as eight notices from various family members. It rarely happens nowadays to that extent.

Acknowledgements

This type of notice has also dwindled, and it seems in many cases families opt for sending a thank you card to those they especially wish to thank. This is more personal, as well as being cost affective.

Obituary notice

The term obituary refers to a written news report of a person’s life and is reserved for famous or newsworthy individuals. These are published free of charge and report the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral.