James MacLeod's Blog
A Wish Before I Die : The Peter Gourlay Story
During late May and early June I couldn’t help but be touched by the story 3AW’s Neil Mitchell ran on four-year-old Peter Gourlay.
Peter was suffering from terminal cancer and had stolen the heart...
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Commiserate and Celebrate
An increasing number of Australians want joy not sorrow at funerals. That’s a key finding of a survey carried out on behalf of the Australian Funeral Directors’ Association (AFDA) by McCrindle Rese...
Friday, June 6, 2014
Live Below The Line
A few weeks ago I was reading a Facebook status of my friend Ruben who said he was participating in Live Below the Line. Live Below the Line is an experience, and a challenge, for thousands of Aust...
Friday, June 6, 2014
Rex Hunt Joins Tobin Brothers Funerals to Celebrate the Lives of AFL Greats
After twenty one years of calling the footy for 3AW, a program that’s enjoyed mostly number one ratings, and playfully calling his ABC neighbours the “Tobin Brothers”, Rex Hunt will be jumping ship...
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Pre-paying a Funeral : Case Studies
Tobin Brothers Funerals recently arranged a funeral for a lady who completed a Fixed Price Funeral Plan with us in the 1980s. Her Fixed Price Funeral was paid off over a 3 year period and then...
Friday, April 4, 2014
Tobin Brothers Funerals 80th Anniversary
“It is fitting in this year of 1955 as we attain our majority of 21 years of faithful service to the Catholic community of Victoria that we should express our thanks to the thousands of families wh...
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Celebrating Christmas…Celebrating Life
For all of us Christmas means different things at different times during our lifetimes. For me, as a child growing up Christmas was always a time that I looked forward to as a wonderful o...
Friday, December 13, 2013
Previous Posts
Coping at Christmas 2018
If you have experienced loss the whole festive season can be extremely challenging.
Time and time again people have said to us they wish they could go to bed at the end of November and wake...
Celebrating Father Gerard Dowling’s 45 Years on Air
Congratulations to our great friend Father Gerard Dowling OAM DE as he celebrates the huge milestone of reaching 45 years on air! Father Dowling hosts a regular spot on the RSN 927 AM every Sunday ...
Father's Day 2018
Father’s Day is certainly a different occasion for me today because my father died in 1998. In fact Father’s Day 1998 was the last occasion that we had gathered as an entire family, m...
Valda Twaddle Trust Awards 2017
In 2006 I received a telephone call from Perry Westons Lawyers regarding funds that were bequeathed to me. I made an appointment to attend their offices and in doing so I learnt that Valda Tw...
Funerals Are Too Important To Leave To Just Anyone
As Managing Director of Australia’s largest owned family funeral company, Tobin Brothers Funerals, I would like to make the following comments on the widely reported alleged coffin swapping by Hart...
The Life Celebration of Daniel Harkins
On 18th June 2017, Daniel John Edward Harkins was returning from Bairnsdale after a race meeting when he stopped to assist a car that had run off the road between Sale and Rosedale, he was tra...
It’s your funeral, an investigation of death care in the Funeral Industry in Australia Comment
As Managing Director of Tobin Brothers I’d like to make the following comments on a recently released paper “It’s your funeral, an investigation of death care in the Funeral Industry...