Toby Mynott

Background

About Toby Mynott

I’m Toby Mynott and a little over 3 years ago I founded Simple Kent Funerals. I’ve been a funeral director for a relatively short time. A great friend of mine, Giles, died about 4 years ago in an accident and his wife, Harriet, asked me to help her organise a simple funeral. When we started contacting funeral directors we were surprised and dismayed by the lack of many things we expected… but that weren’t offered - such as empathy, flexibility, modernity, transparency… and were pretty shocked by prices, which we felt were very poor value for money. I was working at the time in London, for MySupportBroker CIC (Community Interest Company – like a social enterprise). I had been planning to work nearer home and, wishing to continue to do something that made a difference to peoples’ lives and, having experienced for myself the lack of flexible funeral services locally, I decided to start Simple Kent Funerals Ltd which has now been trading successfully for a little over 3 years. I was told I’d need many tens of thousands of pounds to set up as a funeral director but, having done research, realised this wasn’t necessarily the case. A private mortuary service in Kent agreed to provide me with logistical support, significantly reducing my set-up outlay - with the added benefit of logistical costs being flexible, rather than fixed. From the word go I was able to provide an unhurried, relaxed, unpressured and truly personal service. I work from home and welcome families here in our un-funerial surroundings (we have dogs, chickens, ponies etc and we often sit outside in the garden, next to our fields, for meetings) or visit them at their homes. As well as being a funeral director I’m a celebrant too which many families appreciate, being another way of providing a very personal service. Unlike any other funeral directors I've yet come across, we don't make any profit from 3rd party fees. Families pay what we’ve paid and no more - so complete transparency. We're a carbon neutral business working in sustainable, green-minded and eco-friendly ways and enable families to offset the carbon emissions from cremation. I’ve had a number of enquiries from people asking about the possibility of working with me and I’ve thought long and hard about the right way to grow the business while maintaining its essential personal approach. I believe the way forward is to licence to like-minded people, enabling them to provide the highly-personal ‘Simple Funerals’ model in the county or region where they live.