Chris Maclean: Why trade needn't be six feet under

Last week our florist was bemoaning the state of his trade. With autumn here all his wedding business, pre-planned and booked for months, has been completed and from now until the spring what work there is will be piece-meal stuff. "What we need is a good cold winter" he confided.

Cheerful fellow, our florist.

He could foresee that the cold weather usually brings forward a significant increase in the number of elderly people dying.

He was looking forward to the potential for new funeral business.

He was hoping for deaths.

His business is well positioned to take advantage of it.

Well one man's misfortune can always be another man's good luck.

My initial response to such an attitude should, I feel, be one of horror ~ how could someone seek to profit from another's misfortune? But in truth I've been doing it for years.

Funerals are good business and the living need the opportunity to celebrate the life of the deceased ~ where better to do it than the pub?

As I write this the last remnants of today's funeral party are preparing to leave. They've been here six hours. They aren't drunk (they couldn't be in a pub, could they?) but the volume has gone up a little. And, strangely enough, they are pretty cheerful.

From here in my office I can hear one woman shrieking with laughter. The grieving has taken place elsewhere. The service at the church or crematorium was the last opportunity for public tears. So most funeral parties are celebrations and opportunities to catch up with relatives and friends. The pub is the ideal vehicle for it.

I'm not sure how getting the funeral market is best achieved. Having a venue large enough and being able to provide a few sandwiches and teas & coffees is a priority. There are plenty of pubs that can do that. Maybe target-marketing funeral directors and vicars is a little too pro-active but simply providing a venue that people know to be appropriate without loud music or other distractions, unless those responsible for organising it believe them to be necessary, might be sufficient.

My last pub was near the crematorium and we had a reasonable through-put of funerals. This pub, whilst not having the proximity of the crem, is big enough and capable of doing a reasonable job.

What is perhaps the biggest attraction of this macabre market niche is that invariably it takes place during the week at, or around, lunchtime. This is idle, low-volume trading time and the pub is getting filled with strangers, mostly, at a convenient time for us, with most of them having a high spend (few go back to work after a funeral) plus the food, teas and coffes on top.

This is perfect recession business.

Think about it.

People are going to die.

People are going to grieve.

People will go to funerals.

People will then celebrate the life of the deceased in a pub.

Where better than a place like my pub?

Death can be a wonderful thing for a licensee...