'You mess with tradition at your peril'

It was thus with mixed feelings that staff regarded Robert as he stepped out to show them the firm's new mourning apparel at the firm's Ludlow Road, Feltham headquarters.

It is an intensely moving sign of respect, the funeral conductor in black top hat, walking sedately at the head of the procession of gleaming hearses and cars, black gloves in hand.

"What do you think", Robert said, arms extended in the crisply cut tail coat. The cortège is safe in Lodge Brothers hands because the difference is discreet with details of royal blue assuaging the trademark black attire.

The present board of directors is the seventh generation to run the firm established in 1780 and includes Robert's sister Beverley, who also conducts funerals.

She said: "Our job is to enable a client to feel they've done their best they can for their loved ones.

"The world of funerals is changing and you must adapt, but people still want dignity and respect and a broad Christian ethic."

Planning the final act a person will carry out for someone precious to them is an area where people seldom stint, from the published death notice, to the engraved headstone or commemorative plaque.

Harking back to the 1980s, Beverley, 48, commented: "During financially buoyant times people could afford more, so there were more limousines and also, of course, because not so many people owned cars.

"But now everyone is very conscious of cost. A funeral can cost anything from £800 to £4,000."

Around 80 per cent of funerals are cremations and 20 per cent are burials, figures which are reversed outside London where land is at a premium and layering graves or even moving sites have caused controversy in some areas.

Green' funerals involving cardboard coffins at designated woodland sites are favoured in some quarters, but the conventional graveyard or crematorium funeral is still the norm and companies such as Lodge's have coffins which are also biodegradable and available in a variety of stains such as dark oak, elm and mahogany.

What would strike anyone who hasn't attended a funeral for a long time is the great variety of services on offer at church, chapel, crematorium and even at home.

"Twenty or thirty years ago many more people went to church - partly because there weren't so many distractions on a Sunday", said Beverley. "But even now, fewer than one per cent of our clients say they have no religion.

"Although humanist and spiritualist ceremonies are on the increase, 95 per cent of people want some form of religious service. "

Beverley and her colleagues still encounter houses where the curtains are drawn and although it has become usual for the bereaved to visit the deceased at the chapel of rest, it is not unknown for a body to be laid out at home.

"Where the music is concerned in the 1980s there was never any departure from the traditional. "Abide with Me, The Lord is My Shepherd, All Things Bright and Beautiful; Amazing Grace - they were the big four, all sung to the organ or piano.

" Now it is totally different. We are given a CD and it can be Robbie Williams, Witney Houston, Spirit in the Sky, Gladiators... and the services can include anything from pipers or doves being released or balloons.

"We try and ensure that the congregation feels comfortable and involved. For instance, I might suggest that they take a rose up to the coffin during a hymn."

Floral tributes have also broken out from the restrained wreath. "You never saw names spelled out", recalled Beverley. "while the horse drawn carriage was very rare and something you associated with the east end."

Flower arrangements grew more flamboyant from the 1990s and horse drawn carriages put in an appearance in local streets, while cortèges shrank as people drove themselves to the funeral.

Expressions such as funeral parlour' and the undertaker' are still common in the older generation, but while widow's weeds' may have vanished and cheerful colours are frequently requested, black remains the preferred dress code for a significant percentage of mourners.

Notwithstanding issues of ecology and technology as well as fashion in funerals, it is clear that at a time of loss, early influences remain potent and that practices that are tried and test are those which remain trusted.