Let’s get deadly serious

I RECENTLY met up with members of Dundee Pensioners Forum. These meetings are among my favourite diary commitments, probably because I have always felt like a pensioner stuck in a young man’s body.

During our meeting, chairman Gordon Samson said they recently held a meeting where attendees were asked how many of them had a will.

Not one hand was raised. Despite the inevitability of our mortality looming large, many of us fail to make our feelings felt in life on decisions we would never wish to be outsourced to others in death.

New research published by the Co-op days after this meeting with the pensioners confirmed 72% of people have not made a will.

This survey was carried out by YouGov and canvassed the views of more than 16,000 adults across the UK and 18,000 Co-op members.

The research also found that over a fifth of people think about their own death as regularly as once a week and more than half do so monthly. To all intents and purposes, talking about your own mortality is not only increasingly taboo with a stranger, it is less frequent to do so with a loved one.

This is not surprising. I suspect it is borne out of that self-effacing humility and “eh dinna’ want tae be a bather” type of thinking exhibited by baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, or even more so by their silent predecessors, born before 1945.

These feelings – of not wanting to be a burden, seeking to avoid overwhelming those closest to you or not wanting to be vulnerable – are pervasive.

However, the good news is you get to give them the privilege of serving you by allowing yourself to be a burden to them, unless they’re selfish gits.

This same research also revealed less than half

– 45% – of people have openly discussed their funeral wishes with loved ones.

At that meeting, one pensioner – Jim Elder – a regular reader of this column, gave me a gentle rebuke. He made reference to my column last month on the cost of dying, in which a Sunlife report highlighted that the average cost

of a funeral had risen by 120% in Scotland since 2004.

He said: “Ewan, you had a golden opportunity to highlight what Dundee has that exists nowhere else in Scotland.”

That was me skelped.

Jim was referring, of course, to Funeral Link – a charity Dundee Pensioners Forum were, in part, responsible for pioneering in 2018. In a nutshell, Funeral Link provide confidential advice promoting informed choice and seeking to reduce funeral poverty.

They do so by working like a broker between people on limited incomes and funeral directors. Bottom line? You need not break the bank trying to say a dignified final farewell to a loved one and, if you think you are about to, give them a call on 01382 458800 pronto.

Most of us do not leave this world in the same helpless state we arrived, but as uncomfortable as talking about funeral plans, life insurance, a will or a power of attorney with a loved one might feel, these conversations should be had.

Those of you who handed this world to us deserve the offer of that hand right back to alleviate a worry which should not exist at a time in life when you should be enjoying yourself the most.

TIME TO TALK: People often avoid the subject of age and mortality.