The France family has been in the funeral business since 1780, and developed its own rite of passage for the men of the family. Michael, now the director of the company, worked his first funeral in the summer of 1973, aged 13, and now manages a staff of ten including his nephew, Tom. Originally a solicitor, he returned in 1991 and has stayed ever since.

The office on Lamb’s Conduit Street opened in 1898, and the front window still bears a kink in the frame that appeared after a bomb fell behind the building in 1944. The company has managed the funerals of generations of local residents, forging particularly strong links with local Italian families.