SAIF Golden Charter

At the heart of a historic moment

The State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen in September was watched by an estimated 37.5 million people throughout the UK – and 4 billion worldwide – so every aspect of the funeral arrangements had been planned down to the meticulous detail, from the seating of world leaders attending the funeral service in Westminster Abbey to the role of the 10,000 police officers on duty throughout London that day to organise traffic and oversee the safety of public onlookers.

While millions admired the pomp and ceremony of the state occasion, working quietly and diligently behind the scenes was the team from Leverton & Sons Funeral Directors, led by funeral profession stalwart Clive Leverton and his nephew Andrew.

Although Clive retired from the London-based family firm in 2014, which is now run by his daughter Pippa and nephew Andrew, he still takes a great interest in the company, and when it comes to royal funerals he likes to keep his hand on the tiller. He and his brother Keith have considerable expertise in arranging royal funerals, having been involved in the events for Princess Diana in 1997, and The Queen Mother in 2002. When Keith retired, Andrew stepped in to help Clive arrange Prince Philip’s funeral in 2021. However, the funeral of Elizabeth II was the largest and most complex they had been involved in.

The relationship with the Royal Household developed after Clive and Keith received an intriguing phone call from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office (LCO) in 1991 asking if a representative could come and meet with them. As the Lord Chamberlain’s Office is part of the British Royal Household which is involved in organising ceremonial events, Clive suspected what the meeting could be about. He said: “If you get a call from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, you would have to be pretty dim not to realise what’s in store.

“The LCO representative was very charming and asked about our business, but what struck me as very interesting and thoughtful was his second question when he asked us if were to take on all the responsibility for the Royal Household’s funerals, would we be able to cope with the rest of our local clientele?

“As we were one of the founding members of SAIF, Keith and I looked at each other and replied confidently that the answer was ‘yes’, because we knew that our SAIF colleagues would be able to help us if required.

“This was proved correct when Princess Diana died in Paris in 1997 – the amount of offers of help we received from fellow SAIF members was phenomenal.

“At that time we already had 26 funerals arranged for that week but, as she had died on the weekend, Diana’s funeral was not until the following weekend, so we were able to look after our existing clients without needing any help. But it was very satisfying to know that there was help available if we needed it.”

Clive and Keith were honoured to be given this responsibility from the Royal Household and also pleased that an independent family funeral company had been chosen, as the former incumbents J H Kenyons, who are another long-standing London-based funeral director, had recently been taken over by a corporate.

Clive added: “Although they did not give us a reason for changing funeral directors I assumed that the LCO decided that they would rather deal with a family funeral director rather than a conglomerate.

“When we accepted the role, after consulting our wives, the deal was sealed with a simple handshake. There is no contract or Royal warrant, which means that the LCO can decide to go with another funeral director at any time they wish, but as we’ve been in this role for the past 30 years I think they must be satisfied with the service we have provided so far.”

Leverton & Sons’ first royal funeral was a relatively low-key affair with the burial of Lady May Abel Smith at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore, near Windsor Castle. She was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and a niece of Queen Mary.

Clive said: “We try to treat a royal funeral with the same attention as any other funeral. We approach it with the same degree of professionalism and care that we do for every family that comes to us but, of course, royal funerals are a little more demanding.”

The plans for royal funerals are made many years in advance and Leverton & Sons are involved in the early stage of the planning process with the LCO, local authority and police service, as well as other stakeholders in the funeral arrangements. Clive added: “It’s well known that the Queen’s funeral plan was called ‘London Bridge’ and we were privy to these plans so we knew what we had to do well in advance: it’s just a case of where and when.

“As you would have seen from the TV coverage, the Queen’s funeral was a huge logistical operation and we had been briefed on where our services would fit in. Leverton & Sons are always involved at the start and the end of the funeral process and with a lot in between, such as the planning process and also rehearsals.”

When Leverton & Sons were appointed as the Royal Undertaker, they inherited two oak coffins to store, reserved for the Queen and Prince Philip, and they also keep a ‘first call coffin’ to be used initially before the final coffin is required.

The first call coffin was used when Clive and his team flew to Paris to repatriate the body of Princess Diana in 1997, and also recently when they had to travel to Scotland to attend to the Queen at Balmoral and to help with arrangements for her lie at rest in Edinburgh before being flown to London.

In Scotland, SAIF member William Purves Funeral Directors was appointed by the LCO to help with the logistics, as Clive explained: “I went to Balmoral with our General Manager Allan Clinton, with the first call coffin, and met with the team from William Purves. They provided the vehicles to take the Queen to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh for one day, then on to St Giles’ Cathedral for two days. They were extremely good and then they took the Queen, The Princess Royal and us to Edinburgh Airport for the flight to London and the state funeral.”

With the eyes of the world on the event, Clive and his team were proud that they could play their part again and contribute to the efficient and respectful completion of another royal funeral.

Clive said: “It was unrelenting pressure for us over 10 days to ensure we got everything right and when it was over we were heartily relieved that it had all gone well.”

Following the Queen’s funeral, Clive said he was looking forward to his ‘retirement’ again, pottering around his allotment and enjoying playing with his three grandchildren.

A career built on the client’s needs

Clive Leverton left school in 1959 and went straight into the family firm to work with his father, brother and uncles to learn about the profession, although he initially wanted to become a missionary. He finally took over the reins with his brother Keith in 1989.

He said the success of one of the UK’s oldest independent family funeral firms is simply down to listening to what his clients want for their loved ones and providing a professional service that meets their needs. He believes that it is this type of personalised and client-focused service that differentiates Independents from the corporates, and it was the main reason he joined with other like-minded funeral directors as one of the founding members to create SAIF in 1989.

Clive explained: “A number of us could all see the way the funeral business was going with independent companies being bought up all over the place by corporate groups, and so we thought it was important to have an organisation that solely looked after the needs of the independent funeral directors.”

Clive has taken a leading role in the organisation and served as SAIF’s third President and as Honorary Secretary. In 2017, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Good Funeral Awards for being instrumental in growing and innovating the family business with “genuine care and passion”.

Although he retired in 2014, he is still very much involved in Leverton & Sons.

He said: “One of the first things people still ask our staff is: ‘are we still a family firm or are we part of a group?’. We are proud of the fact that we are a family firm and that’s why people come to us: families like to deal with another family, and I am very pleased that the Royal Household chose to work with an independent family funeral director like Leverton & Sons rather than a conglomerate.”

Terry Tennens, SAIF CEO, added: “It is a privilege for us in SAIF that Leverton’s are one of our founding firms and continue to this day to be at the heart of supporting independent funeral directors.”