Online send-off

TURN around in your seat at the crematorium in the Berkshire town of Thatcham and you will see a web-cam, fixed to a beam, following the proceedings. It enables anyone who could not make it to the service to follow from afar. The valley of the shadow of death is now being live-streamed.

Demand is growing. The crematorium gets one live-streaming request a week. Obitus, the company that hooked up the system, currently has cameras in 25 locations, charging £2,500 ($3,245) to install and manage the technology.

Forty years ago, “virtually every funeral was the same,” says Paul Allcock, president of the national funeral directors’ society—from the cortege to the Church of England rites. Nothing like the outdoorsy family that inquired this week about using a camper van as a hearse—typical, says Mr Allcock, of a customer base that is less religious, more diverse, and keen to personalise their departure.

Even so, plenty of funeral directors are resisting. A recent survey showed 61% had received requests about live-streaming but many, in what is a “conservative” profession, are wary of what they consider intrusive technology, complains James Crossland, Obitus’s founder. Around a fifth of Britain’s 281 crematoriums have webcams in place. Tech-savvy families ask funeral directors to point them to one that does. The changing geography of modern family life provides more users. The number of Brits living abroad has risen 27% since 1990, to 5m. Some of them cannot make it back for funerals. Migrants to Britain, whose numbers have risen 133% in the same period, to 8.5m, may need webcams, too.

Although the elderly can expect to live longer, they are often less mobile and unable to travel when they do—a problem, notes one staff member at Thatcham, that also faces the black sheep of the family who end up behind bars.

Fairweather friends may use the live-stream as a way not to have to show up in person. In other spheres, such as sports, televised matches attract fewer fans. Mr Allcock says it would be a shame if live-streaming grew too much: personal sympathies given over the cold cuts after a service offer relatives great solace, he says. Death is not a football game. It is much more important than that.