Because it's the right thing to do .......

Helen is the epitome of a breath of fresh air. With ten years’ experience at Maddock’s Funeral Directors in Stockton Heath, Helen took the courageous leap to set up on her own in 2021. She’s now just celebrated the first anniversary of Helen Horne Funeral Directors in Orford and is going from strength to strength.

I’d spotted Helen on Instagram back when I was applying to train and had felt an immediate sense of kinship with what she was aiming to do and the way she was doing it. For a start, she was on socials! Openly posting about her work, just as we expect all modern businesses to do, but which is rare within the funeral world. Perfectly respectful, entirely professional and utterly approachable.

I’m confident that I was trained by the industry’s finest – there’s no one as thorough, knowledgeable or experienced – that’s why I chose them. But one thing they’re not is progressive. Whilst training we were assured that an online presence was not only unnecessary for a funeral celebrant, it was subtly discouraged. And as for social media? Entirely inappropriate!

I disagreed then. I disagree even more now. Death is such an integral part of all our lives, to hide it away like something shameful, not to be discussed in a forum used by most of us daily, helps no one.

Helen came to the funeral industry in 2010, after spending the first 20 years of her professional life as a hairdresser. On the surface this transition might seem unusual, incongruous even, but in many ways the skillsets overlap. Listening is essential to both, as is being a people person, caring for others, interacting with people when they might feel their most vulnerable. To Helen, the move made perfect sense. She never looked back. Embracing whole-heartedly what she knew was her life’s passion by studying funeral administration and funeral directing with the National Association of Funeral Directors.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the NAFD course and am thrilled with the outcome. Now, as well as having the experience and knowledge to help individuals and families at such difficult times in their lives, I have the extension of being qualified in a job I love so much.”

In May 2021 Helen realised her long-held dream: to set up her own funeral home, independent of the large corporate chains which now dominate the industry. An individual’s name over the door of a funeral home gives the impression of a small family-run establishment, but in reality this is rarely the case. The name of a funeral business echoes its origin, acknowledging those who started it before it was swallowed up by a larger, faceless corporation. Whilst this might not be a deliberate ploy, it can feel disingenuous and is certainly misleading.

In Helen’s case, the name over the door is hers. You hire her thinking that she is personally caring for your loved one – and she is. As a celebrant who has been fortunate enough to be trusted and nurtured by her, it’s Helen’s name and reputation I’m representing, as well as my own. It’s a responsibility neither of us take lightly.

Holding the bereaved and the deceased at the centre of everything is Helen’s core value.

“I love the connection with our families.”

And when she says ‘our’ she truly means it, Helen Horne Funeral Directors really is a family affair, with Helen working alongside her daughter, Amelia, supported constantly by her husband and youngest son. The funeral home, Amelia House, has been transformed beyond recognition from (somewhat ironically) a dilapidated hairdressers to the dedicated space it is now. 

In need of significant work, Helen and her team added a chapel of rest, extended space to create a private chapel, added extra doors and nurtured the building into a welcoming, friendly place. One that feels like coming into a space of safety and comfort rather than a sterile office.

In making all these changes, Helen is able to keep the deceased in her care on her own premises, meaning that they’re available to be visited and sat with much more freely. Making hers one of the very few homes in the area where this is possible. It sounds like a no-brainer, but in these days of large corporate chains it’s actually pretty unique - and means that your loved one travels from their place of passing to Amelia House, and that’s where they stay until their funeral.

Although it must sound like I’m on commission with Helen, I’m truly not. But I do promote her services to everyone I talk to, because it’s the right thing to do.

For me, there’s a tiny funeral revolution that needs to take place. We need to start empowering people to think about how they would like their death marking when it happens (because, sorry to break it to you, it is going to). There’s no cure for death, and if there were, just-not-thinking-about-it wouldn’t be it.

When the inevitable happens, what Helen offers is space, understanding and care.

She’s intuitive and engaged. Making suggestions to families which help them to think about the choices they have. If that’s a traditional stream of black limos following a carriage drawn by horses in Victorian headpieces – great, if it’s lighting candles and incense whilst holding a service that solely consists of music – also great.

It’s not anyone in the funeral industry’s job to determine what’s right for you. It’s everyone in the funeral industry’s job to offer options and to support you as you decide what’s best.

Working with Helen makes me feel even more excited about the future of my new career. Her aim is to grow her service gently, at a pace which enables her ethos to remain central: to be warm, to treat everyone with kindness, to be genuine and trustworthy. To relieve the pressures which engulf families at times of loss, by providing well presented, professional funerals with the kindness and empathy they deserve.

And me? Well, I’m hoping to continue working with Helen. To build my career and reputation in the light of her example. It makes a difference to work with women, as Helen says the funeral industry is “a man’s world” – something else that needs to change.