I was the ‘rock star’ funeral director they nicknamed Mr Death… women went wild for me and cheating was in my genes
Date: 2025-02-04
WITH his rock star good looks, lust for women, fast cars and champagne, Howard Hodgson is not your average funeral director.
Now the man who made millions from funerals and became one of Maggie Thatcher’s favourite entrepreneurs has revealed his wild life in the death business.
Hodgson in 1982 leading 10,000 mourners of Sikh leader in Birmingham[/caption]
Within five years, Howard had built Hodgson & Son into Britain’s biggest independent funeral firm, with over 550 branches, and floated it on the stock exchange.
‘Ageing rock star’
He says: “Once we’d floated, I caught the imagination. A funeral director who looked a bit like a rock star, had long hair, a fedora and a white overcoat. Wow! I was often compared to Robert Redford and I played up to that.
“Other people said I looked like a third-division footballer or an ageing rock star. I was only 37!”
Howard’s shares rocketed by 400 per cent in one year.
Amid the media attention, he cheated on his wife with PR worker Caroline Ashe, which caused a sensation, but he managed to sell the company in 1991 for more than £7million.
Howard’s life story is being published in two parts — the first is subtitled The Struggle.
He says: “£7million was a lot of money in those days and it made the front page of The Times.
“Volume two is called The Madness because anything I’d ever done I completely exceeded, in a bad way.
“I didn’t have to go to work. I spent most of my days in bed. I thought I was invincible.
“I set up businesses without taking any care or attention to them. I had to look in the mirror and give myself a good b****cking.”
Eventually he and his son Jamieson, 41, set up Memoria, a network of 14 crematoriums where families could personalise funeral services for their loved ones.
Howard says: “I made a conscious decision. No more Mr Death. We’re not going to be distracted by an even older ageing rock star or a seventh-division footballer so I never did any interviews.”
The company sold for £200million in 2020 and Howard’s share was well over £60million.
Later, over lunch at a swanky Italian restaurant which is a favourite with Chelsea’s players, I ask Howard how he would feel to be described as the David Beckham of the funeral trade.
He smiles: “That’s a compliment. People think David Beckham is vaguely silly. I’ve met him, he’s not.
“He’s an awfully nice guy and a very bright man.”
- This Life In Death: The Struggle by Howard Hodgson is out now (Chipmunka Publishing).
Fury at budget cremations
HOWARD HODGSON personally conducted more than 10,000 funerals – each one meticulously planned for the grieving family.
Today’s low-cost cremations, as advertised on TV, make him angry.
He says: “I don’t see why you should send your mother 500 miles away to be cremated while you go down the pub.
“Since the world began, mankind has always gone to a funeral and the body has always been there. It’s part of the healing process. Can you imagine the Queen’s funeral without a coffin? No.”
Has the man who turns 75 this month planned his own funeral?
Mr Death wants to be cremated – like 80 per cent of Brits.
But when it comes to the music, he says: “I wouldn’t have the 23rd Psalm or Abide With Me. I’ve heard them both far too many times.
“It’s Elgar’s Nimrod for me.”
