by CAROL ANN-TUDOR

THE RISING cost of living may soon start affecting the cost of dying.

Although some funeral directors have not made any adjustments yet to their various services, most said they were already monitoring the situation, knowing changes in their rates would eventually come "somewhere down the line".

James Wilson, director of Downes & Wilson Funeral Home in Eagle Hall, St Michael, said that funeral home would try to put its prices down as long as possible, in relation to imported items like caskets.

However, he said he could see the cost of limousines and taxi fares eventually rising due to the latest fuel hikes.

Dennis Tudor, director of Tudor's Funeral Home, Ivy Road, St Michael, said although prices of materials used had increased, they considered burial of the dead a sacred obligation.

The director said already the cost of lumber used for making caskets had risen, so there would be a slight increase in the price of caskets.

However, he said other areas were out of their control.

"We cannot control the cost of burials in Government cemeteries since they set their own prices.

"At other cemeteries we are at the mercy of the gravediggers and we also have no control over what the priests charge, but all of these are things that might be affected," he said.

Managing director of L.E. Smith Funeral Home Klesil Toppin said she, too, was monitoring the situation.

"I'm quite sure that it will have some effect on the cost of transportation, which will change at some point in time, but we will have to try wherever possible to minimise the cost to our clients; we will have to absorb some," she said.

Toppin also noted they usually kept a heavy stock of caskets so right now there would not be any change in costs.

"But I'm sure they will come," she added.

At Paramount Funeral Home in Hindsbury Road, manager Leon Lewis said they had seen the rise in costs since escalating fuel prices, and they, too, were monitoring the situation. (CT)