The Big Interview: William Purves chairman Tim Purves

Chairman of funeral director William Purves, Tim Purves, explains why undertakers have to do business differently.

Tim Purves admits that the price of a funeral is a sensitive issue, but insists there should be no hidden costs. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Legendary thespian Oliver Reed said he wanted everyone at his funeral to have a good drink and to cry. “If they are not crying, I want them to pretend to cry – a load of them are supposed to be actors, for God’s sake,” he reportedly said. “When I go, I want it to be a good excuse for the best party you have ever seen.”

His wishes were apparently fulfilled – and while not everyone may want such a dramatic send-off, encouraging people to think about and put down on paper what they want for their own funeral is a key passion of Tim Purves.

“Let’s talk about this,” says the chairman of William Purves Funeral Directors, a fifth-generation member of the family business.

It was founded in 1888 by the eponymous Borders craftsman and cabinet-maker, who set off for a new life in New Zealand but only got as far as Edinburgh.

In the early 1900s, his son Willie carried on the family business. He was given permission to leave the front in the First World War and come home due to his mother’s illness. He later learned that the rest of his regiment, The Scots Greys Cavalry, had all been killed.

The firm is headquartered at its vast Oakvale Funeral Home site in Edinburgh near Bruntsfield – whose facilities also include a tranquil “ashes library”.

'We're always looking to diversify'

Speaking in a well-appointed upstairs room at the property, Tim says that having a funeral plan in place ensures people get the goodbye they would like and provides key direction to their loved ones at a stressful time.

He is keen not only to see the taboo around death removed, but to stress the firm’s aim to balance a professional level of service with competitive pricing – as it seeks to evolve in a still traditional, slow-moving sector where ceremonies remain somewhat “Victorian and theatrical”. What’s more, cost alone takes up much of the limelight when people consider the industry.

The business says it is Scotland’s largest independent funeral director, with 31 locations throughout Scotland and northeast England – Elgin to Whitley Bay, in fact – spanning 15 brands and a workforce exceeding 100.

It has also stepped up the pace of growth since 2000, the year Tim joined in a full-time capacity after working for the firm during holidays from school and his degree related to sports science.

His father John had in fact told him while he was growing up that there was a post in the organisation if he would like it, but he also discouraged his son from joining without experiencing other sectors. “I think he felt that there’d be nothing worse than coming into it and then, ten years later, maybe thinking I’ve never tried anything else.”

Tim’s initial focus was meeting families, and arranging and conducting funerals, becoming a director in 2007 and taking the reins as chairman in June 2014. The business has been growing in part via acquisitions, for example last year taking on Gary Staker Funeral Directors in Monkseaton and Affordable Funerals in Shiremoor, both in Northumberland.

In October it said it was rebranding Haddington-based Wood & Hay as William Purves, some 20 years after buying it, while it is increasing its presence regarding crematoria. “We’re always looking to diversify and see if there’s other things we could get involved with as well,” says Tim.

“Ultimately, the way we view things is you’ve got to invest in your business for it to continue. I mean, we’ve been here since 1888. There’s no reason to say that we will always be here unless we invest in the business. So things like the property, the staff, the vehicles, these things we’re always investing in… we’re also putting some of our profits back into the business and making sure that everything is kept to a standard.”

Funeral poverty

The funeral service firm has its own dedicated Embalming Academy, and this year it has invested £1 million in corporate vehicles – seven luxury limousine cars and four hearses.

Tech is playing a growing role, and at its Oakvale site the firm has installed large digital screens to help co-ordinate operations.

The funeral business now also offers digital services regarding, say, handling data when someone dies, as well as, crucially, funeral planning.

Indeed, while the technology may be evolving, Tim is keen for people to record their funeral wishes however it best suits them, with the company happy to talk it through in person.

He also touches on the subject of funeral poverty, having previously pointed out that around 15 per cent of Scots admitted they would struggle to pay for their funeral.

Royal London in September published its sixth annual funeral cost report. The insurer found that the average cost of a funeral had risen by £28 from last year to £3,785 (£3,537 in Scotland). The increase was mainly attributed to rising burial and cremation fees, with funeral directors having lowered their own bills a little. Also noted was that the amount people spent on a funeral varied little based on their level of income, so the poorest are disproportionately affected by funeral costs.

That was a point also made by the Competition & Markets Authority in its study published earlier this year on the funerals market. It reported that the price of the essential elements of a funeral is estimated to have grown by 6 per cent annually over the past 14 years, twice the inflation rate over the period.

The power of personalisation

The William Purves business is working to drive transparency in pricing across the industry and make its service as accessible as possible while maintaining standards – for what Tim emphasises is a major life event prepared at fairly short notice, and obviously only done once.

He believes there is too much focus on funeral “packages”. Although the firm can produce such an offering, “what we find is people don’t want packages… when it comes to your loved one, you probably don’t want it to be a package. You want to be able to talk through and have it personalised and have exactly what you want. And that’s what we’re about. We’re saying, ‘Look, we will tailor every funeral to exactly what you want…’ If you’re trying to fit people into packages, then that’s where I think there’s a lack of understanding of what we do.

“We have probably been pushing the boundaries more than a lot of other firms in trying to push things on a wee bit. It goes back to the personalisation thing again… if [within reason] it’s worth it to them, then it’s worth it to me.”

Personalisation can involve something unusual (which will be considered if not illegal or immoral, Tim says). But it can be as simple as a piece of music they would like, to the order of service or who it is that’s taking the funeral.

“Anyone who comes in through our door we can do the funeral for,” he adds, with the business catering for a variety of cultures, such as Chinese and Jewish ceremonies, and sometimes tasked with handling international repatriations.

He also stresses that the business doesn’t impose “hidden” extra costs. “We charge a fair price, we’re not the most expensive… we’ll openly say we’re not the cheapest, but what we are doing is we’re doing a really good service. We’re tailoring and we’re personalising.”

The funeral firm also says it doesn’t pay staff commission for upselling – which it would do if it was trying to maximise profits. The focus instead is about building a sustainable business.

Tim says that in contrast to dealing with a funeral director, when you book with a budget airline, you know you’ll have to pay extra for a larger luggage allowance or choosing your seat, for example. “In our industry, people expect that all of this stuff is included. And then when they find out with our competitors that it’s not, I suspect people are not massively delighted to hear that. And that’s why we say, look, this is our charge – and it includes all these things.”

Looking ahead, William Purves is taking a highly selective approach to the possibility of more acquisitions, both in terms of the nature of a business and its location. “We’ve always said that we would like it to be somewhere that we can get to and back within a day, so we wouldn’t be looking to open up in London, or really far south.”

And in terms of succession planning, Tim would love William Purves to stay in the family (he works alongside second cousin Andrew) but would not oblige anyone to do so. “We would put something in place that meant that the same values and everything that we have now would continue… if it turns out that there wasn’t a Purves in the business at some stage in the future.”

For now, when he tells people what he does for a living, they either won’t stop asking questions or they “don’t really want to speak to you again”. The nature of the job means there are inevitably emotional moments for the staff (“we are human beings as well, we’re not robots”).

But he cites a colleague who as a youngster would cross the road to avoid directly passing a local funeral business, as he didn’t know what went on in there – but who now wishes he could invite people in to see what goes on.

“It’s a real privilege for us to be involved at a key moment in people’s lives… and to be able to guide families through it,” he says.