My Name is David Anderson and I co-own Anderson Independent Funeral Directors in Little Sutton, Ellesmere Port. From a very young age I always wanted to be a funeral director, I feel my job is a calling, a vocation which I take very seriously.
My great grandmother passed away when I was five years old; because I was so young my parents decided that it was best I didn’t attend the funeral. This left me very confused as to what actually happened to her after she had died, and caused me to ask my family lots of questions and take a great interest in funerals.
A few years later my Grandfather passed away. We attended a funeral home which had a private name but was owned by a large company, to pay our last respects as a family. The service that we received was very poor, we felt our Grandfather was not looked after as well as he should have been, my Grandmother was not given the support care and guidance she required at such a distressing time. It was then I truly realised that I could not only do this job, but I could do it much better.
I was brought up as a Catholic and served on the altar at Saint Francis Church in Chester, there were many occasions when helped out the Priest with funerals so I had a good understanding of them. I started my career at the age of nineteen working for a large funeral home as a driver bearer. I excelled in this role and soon became a funeral arranger.
I very much enjoyed working for this company but always felt I wasn’t doing justice for the family’s I served because I was based in the office all the time and wasn’t able to go out to the family home if necessary, and if the family had any questions worries or concerns out of office hours they would only be able to contact myself if it happened to be my week on call. I felt this was lacking a personal service as I had spent time building up a rapport with each family for them to then to be met with perhaps and answer phone, if not a person who did not know them and did not know the situation. As well as this as a Funeral Arranger, you were not permitted to conduct the funeral on the day, which meant another person a stranger to the family would greet them on a day where they need the most support. This led me to leave and start working for an Independent Funeral Director who has trained me in the art of independent Funeral Directing. I feel this is where I got to develop my skills with the families, care of the deceased and funeral directing the most, making me the person I am today.
I studied for a qualification in funeral directing with the National Association of Funeral Directors, I am one of the youngest qualified Funeral Directors in the country. In October 2012 I opened my own funeral home, Anderson independent, Little Sutton. We have far exceeded our expectations of how well our Funeral Home has done in the first year of opening.
Our family values, and worth ethic, combined with my qualifications experience and passion, empathy to clients and compassion is proving to be a successful combination.
I feel being a funeral director is not a job it’s a vocation, if I had not have found my niche in this line of work I would have been a priest.
By David Anderson
from Anderson Funeral Directors
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