It is a shame that you can't give any more than 5 stars for this review, because this was already going to be a 5 star review before the funeral even happened. In fact, it was already going to be a 5 star review after we met Gary for the first time. So it feels like we're doing the funeral itself - which was also exceptional - a disservice by not adding any more stars for that.
It all started after a long and arduous day of visiting different funeral directors, collecting brochures, asking questions, and taking notes. Then, the plan was to rendezvous back at home, compare notes, discuss our thoughts, and choose the most favourable one. By the end of the day, that had changed from choosing the most favourable one, to choosing the lesser of all evils. Such was our experience with everyone we had visited so far. We were on our way home, looked at the time, and decided that we might just about be able to squeeze one more in beforehand, before they all start closing for the day. And on a whim, we chose Chamberlains. And that was when night turned to day. Stepping through those doors was like stepping into an entirely different world to the one we had become accustomed to experiencing throughout the rest of the day previous to this moment. We were greeted by Gary, just about the most elegant, proper, and well spoken man that you are ever likely to meet. An ardent perfectionist, using a ruler to write anything, just to make sure it was neat and level. And inputting everything on his calculator 3 separate times, just to make sure he had gotten it all correct. Our deceased husband, father and grandfather could not be in better hands with anyone else, than he would be with Gary. He invited us into a room, which felt much more homely than the office-like environments of everywhere else. Sitting on a sofa in front of a fireplace, we talked and talked and talked with him, as he attended to our every desire, right down to the last detail. He tailored everything exactly to our specifications. I can't stress this enough. There was no "here is a list of things, and here are their prices". There was a lot of "here is something we can do here, and if we tweak this other thing, then that would open up for this". He had to sit and work out the logistics of achieving our specific things, and was only too happy to do so. Past closing time, I might add. And then he downplayed it as no big deal when we mentioned that we were keeping him from going home. And not because he was about to make a sale, either. In fact, he hesitated to mention services that he thought would be relevant to us. It made him uncomfortable, because it felt to him like he was unintentionally making a sales pitch. No, this was about making sure that before we left the building, we had exactly what we wanted, in exactly the way that we wanted it, while still keeping things within our budget, by finding clever ways to cut costs, without sacrificing the dignity of the deceased, or the wishes of the bereaved. We were so impressed, that when we left and got back into the car, we collectively decided that there wasn't even any need to go back home and discuss anything. One of us observed that it was the first time that we had smiled all day. We had just found our funeral director.
We were kept fully informed throughout the process any time something occurred, all the way up to the funeral itself, by Gary and Sue. And Sue navigated the difficult task of payment for us, with nothing but grace, patience and understanding.
Then, at the funeral, such care was taken with every little detail, that Gary even asked for permission for little things that would normally be considered just a regular part of the funeral ritual, just on the off chance that anyone objects to any of it. His top priority was always that things went exactly how we wanted them to, no matter how small. And in fact, when we threw him a curveball on the spot after the funeral, with a request for an open coffin, he was only too happy to oblige, despite no notice on the matter.
And how about the after care? I hesitate to even call it after care. It was more like some new friends, offering up the gesture of being just on the other side of a phone at this difficult time, if we ever needed help performing this task or that. And all of it completely free of charge, by the way.
This is not so much a funeral director business, as it is a group of people who genuinely care about helping people going through a difficult time, and - due to how much of their time it occupies - are lucky enough that it is something that they just happen to be able to make a living wage doing. I truly believe that if this funeral director business didn't exist, then the people in it would be running some form of bereavement charity instead, doing the same thing.
If you think you can find a better funeral director than Chamberlains anywhere in Walsall or the surrounding areas, then good luck to you. Because we certainly failed to do so. And it wasn't even close.
