Bright-Hill Funerals

Nikki Hill. Warm, friendly and completely un-funereal, Nikki is the creator and owner of Bright-Hill Funerals, and it is Nikki who will answer your phone call, meet with you and your family and help you to create an affordable, meaningful funeral for the person who has died.

Nikki was born and raised on the Isle of Wight and she has lived here almost all her life, spending just a year or so on the mainland when she was a young woman before returning to her home town of Ryde. She’s lived here ever since, raising her daughter (now grown up), walking her dogs and involving herself with her local community. She knows loads of people, from all walks of life, and treats everyone with the same warmth and respect, no matter what their background. “Every family is different, everyone’s got a story,” she says, “I meet each family with an open mind”.

Nikki knows about bereavement from personal experience – her brother Steve died a few years ago, and she cared for both of her parents at home before they died. It was the death of her mother in 2007 that caused Nikki to look at the world of funerals differently.

“We were very vulnerable and I think we said yes to pretty much everything that was suggested to us, so we ended up with a funeral that was not very fitting for our mum – and it cost a fortune! Afterwards, I researched and saw that actually, there’s no right or wrong way to do a funeral, it’s what the family wants that counts. So I set to, and Bright-Hill was born, to offer affordable funerals and to put together the kinds of funerals that families actually want for their loved ones, with no unnecessary trimmings if not required.”

The company is named in honour of Nikki’s mum – Bright was her mum’s maiden name, and her favourite flower, the sunflower is the Bright-Hill symbol. It’s a fitting, sunny and uplifting image that perfectly reflects Nikki’s gently positive attitude and her open approach to her work.

Nikki’s way is different to traditional funeral directors, those who have high street branches, staffing costs and fleets of vehicles, with all the business overheads these incur. She has a simple, straightforward and uncomplicated approach. She has looked at what you actually need from an undertaker when somebody dies, and she has found a way of providing these services properly and proficiently but without needing to pass huge costs on to her clients.

Her way of working is completely legal, completely professional and utterly refreshing – in a sector typified by men dressed in Victorian tailcoats and top hats, glossy expensive vehicles or horse-drawn carriages complete with nodding plumes and extraordinarily costly wooden boxes, and a society that has somehow come to believe all this is necessary to ‘show respect’ to the deceased, Nikki’s approach cuts straight through that. She offers an alternative funeral arrangement process, a simple, straightforward and uncomplicated one. “My aim is to give you my personal attention so that the funeral is as stress free as possible, leaving a lasting memory of a celebration to mark the closing of a special person’s life,” she says.

Nikki will come to you at your home to talk about the funeral arrangements, at a time that suits you, and paperwork is completed at your home or hers. When it comes to the care of people who have died in hospital, Nikki has gone to the people who do this best – the immensely experienced and professional mortuary staff at St. Mary’s Hospital in Newport. “I knocked on the door of the bereavement services with my business plan and was quite expecting them to stay no, but they didn’t,” said Nikki, “The manager at the time invited me in and we started talking about how it could work.”

Two long years of discussions with the Isle of Wight NHS Trust about Nikki’s proposal eventually resulted in a contract which provides all the professional care for people who have died in the hospital right there in the superb mortuary facilities at St. Mary’s, for which the Trust receives a fee to cover staff and facility costs.

Mortuary manager Gary was away when we visited, so Louise showed us around the entire immaculate mortuary facilities, which were among the best we’ve visited.

The arrangement between Bright-Hill and the Isle of Wight NHS Trust means that all the practical care is done by the Mortuary Team, and the people whose funerals are being arranged by Nikki stay in the care of Gary, Louise and the team until the morning of the funeral. If somebody dies elsewhere, Nikki will take her partner and another family member (or trusted close friend) to collect and take them to her small, immaculate mortuary space on a private estate.

If your relative has died in hospital and you want to spend time with them prior to the funeral, then the Mortuary Team will arrange an appointment for you to come and spend time in their lovely spacious room. There is a comfortable waiting area from which you can come and go, and you’ll be given complete privacy for as long as you want. It’s exactly as it would be if they were being looked after at a funeral director’s premises, but you won’t have had to pay for them to be collected and transported elsewhere.

On the day of the funeral, Nikki’s staff will arrive in a custom vehicle, carefully ‘dressed’ inside to create a special space for the coffin to travel in. The simple oak veneer coffin provided as part of the funeral cost is taken into the mortuary, and your relative will be carefully laid in their coffin by the Mortuary Team. The coffin will then be driven to the crematorium in East Cowes where Nikki will be waiting, and together she and her staff will take the coffin into the crematorium chapel and place it on the catafalque, bowing in respect before retiring. This takes place in the quiet of the early morning on the day of the funeral, accompanied just by the sound of birdsong and the breeze in the trees in the grounds. “It’s a really special moment,” says Nikki.

If there is to be a ceremony later in the day, the crematorium staff take responsibility for the coffin and remove it to their cool room to await the service time. Nikki will either stay or return later to make sure everything is ready and in place before mourners arrive.  If the cremation appointment is the early morning one, then Nikki comes back into the chapel to polish the coffin, make sure that any flowers are beautifully displayed and check that every single thing is right. She cheerfully admits to being obsessive about every detail – “I just want to make sure everything looks as good as possible, I sit in various places to see how it looks from where the family will be and then make tiny adjustments.”

If you decide to use Bright-Hill’s Direct Cremation Service, unusually you are welcome to attend the crematorium at the time booked and be with your relative for those last special moments before the coffin is taken for cremation. “The families are paying for the time at the crematorium,” says Nikki, “they have every right to be there and do whatever they want in that time, even if they don’t want a funeral ceremony.” Nikki makes sure that families know this, and is always ready for someone to arrive unexpectedly at the last moment, having changed their minds.

For families who want to have a funeral ceremony, Nikki works closely with local clergy and celebrants and will be able to suggest someone suitable to help you create the ceremony that you want.

Nikki attends every funeral ceremony, dressed in her smart deep purple trouser suit with a bright scarf and a sunflower brooch on her lapel – easily identifiable but un-intrusive. She is always there half an hour before mourners arrive to greet them, and sitting in at the back of the service. Her role is to care for the bereaved family, from first moment of contact, throughout the period leading up to the funeral and on the day itself, and then afterwards as well. Nikki collects the ashes from the crematorium and transfers them from the non-descript plastic pot they are supplied in into a sunflower scatter tube before returning to the family at home. Everyone Nikki works for is given her personal mobile phone number, and told they can contact her whenever they need. If she feels that additional support is needed for people she’s worked for, Nikki will source them appropriate help and stay in contact with them