Placing press notices and obituaries Sam Weller Placing a notice or obituary to a loved one in the local or national press offers both the bereaved family and close friends the opportunity to pay their own tributes and can help soften the blow of a loss.

In this article

Placing the notice

Writing an obituary

The placing of press notices is one of the tasks that a funeral director can do for you. If you can provide all the relevant information about the deceased many funeral directors will be more than happy to do this for you. Alternatively, if you wish to take care of the notices yourself, a call to the classified department of your local newspaper should be enough to give you an idea of the tone and size of tribute you require.

You might also like to place a notice in one of the national broadsheet newspapers. This will put the information before a wider audience if the deceased had a high profile or was nationally recognised.

If the deceased person was a member of a professional society or club with a journal, then the editor may be interested in publishing an obituary.

It's the practice in some parts of the country to place notices in the deaths column that are tributes in the form of epitaphs or poems. Writing these is often a family affair with several people contributing thoughts, and composing them can be quite therapeutic.

If you're called upon to write an obituary, then it's very likely to be for someone you knew well - and therefore you're pretty well placed to write it.

Nevertheless, there's a responsibility to friends and family of the deceased to create a tribute they can feel happy with - something encompassing the spirit and personality of the friend or family member that they loved and respected.

Discuss the content with other people who knew the deceased and ask if they have some short but interesting anecdotes that might be included. These can be preceded by a little about the person - name, date and place of birth, something about the important people in their life and the relationships they had with them, any outstanding qualities or achievements, endearing personality traits - and how they spent their working life.

You should include details of where the service and burial or cremation is to take place - and any special instructions regarding flowers/donations. Think of it as a 'work in progress'. Continue to talk to others for inspiration. Come back to it - if you aren't happy, and make changes. Take your time - and above all, don't get too stressed over it, because your efforts will be appreciated.