To freeze her bank account, I went to my local branch the day after she died and asked what to do. They gave me a number to call when I had a death certificate, so yesterday I called it. The number was for the bank's bereavement services. They asked me if the branch had given me a reference number when I'd told visited. The conversation went something like this:
Bank: Were you given a reference number? It would start with BCR.
Me: No, I wasn't.
Bank: You should have been.
Me: I wasn't.
Bank: But you should have been.
Me: I wasn't.
Bank: But ... you should have been.
Me: I wasn't.
The bank cracked first and asked what I had been given. I read out the piece of paper, which said "Bereavement Services" and the number. They reluctantly conceded that I perhaps hadn't been given a number, and promptly gave me one. Other than that, though, they were very good.
Along with the death certificate, I got a green form. This is for the funeral director's use, so they can collect the body, do their stuff with it, and deliver it for cremation. When I dropped the form off at their office, I was met with this sign on the entrance:
I don't know why that arrow was pointing to the right. It's not a sliding door, and there isn't another door to the right I should have used. I suspect that someone had an arrow to position and had to make the best of it. The arrow is visible from both sides of the door, so if it had been placed pointing down (which I'd associate more with "pull") then it would have been down on the other, "push" side, too. It would have been better without the arrow, though.....