77. What it’s really like running a funeral directors business | Damian Melville

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. Few professions require quite the same combination of compassion, resilience and responsibility as that of a funeral director. Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Damien Melville, whose work involves supporting families through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

0:45In this episode, we discuss how someone enters the funeral profession, what it means to work closely with death and the extraordinary challenges faced by funeral businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Well today on All About Business I'm really delighted to welcome Damien Melville. Damien is the founder and managing director of Melville and Daughters Funeral Directors and you're based in Tottenham North London. Your business Damien was established in 2010 and you initially identified the afro-caribbean market as your focus but you've widened out from there since you began yeah essentially i was trying to find a niche within a business that an industry rather that i really enjoyed being in uh and i obviously being part of the afro-caribbean community and culture i i saw uh an opportunity to provide a service for people that are like me Can I just wind back a moment before that?

1:50Because I wanted to understand, Damien, I mean, how did you become a funeral director? How did you get into this? Because you didn't inherit a family business. No, no, no, no, no. How did you start out? I fell into it by accident, just by chance, because obviously when I was at uni doing business studies, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So I thought, let me finish the degree. And then, you know, the government promised us jobs at the end of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go to uni, get a degree. As soon as you come out, you know, it would be wonderland and there'd be jobs and opportunities waiting for you.

2:27But that didn't happen. That didn't happen. So what did happen? What happened was that I had our first child and we needed to provide for her. So I just basically did whatever I could. And that involved me driving a lorry for a couple of years on delivering to a local business. It wasn't too far away from me, but it was near enough. I asked them if there was any opportunities that if they came up, would they consider me because I was reliable and so on and so forth. They said, yeah, of course. So an opportunity came up. They gave it to me. I worked there for two or three years, organising rotors for the staff, drivers, tilers, labourers.

3:13So this was a tiling business? Yeah, it was a tiling business. So it was a retail outlet. They had three outlets, which they sold tiles from, and they also provided the fitting service. So it was a lot of juggling people A to B and timings and that type of thing. so I did that for a couple of years which was it was a learning curve because it was a small family business so you know it was good for me to experience the pressures of that um but it was too much of a chore driving to work hour and a half sometimes two hours sometimes two and a half hours each way yeah yeah because of the traffic four or five hours in the car just yeah wow which was which was a lot um so I started to look around because of the fatigue that was bearing down on me and a job came up in a funeral directors which was not too far from my house and the job description was basically uh arranging the staff um making sure the limousines and hearses everyone were where they needed to be when they needed to be so you were in some logistics to start with yeah it was logistics really right um before they you know put me in the kind of more sensitive areas okay so you started at this funeral direct where was this located this was in Hertfordshire.

4:26Hertfordshire. And they specialised in repatriations. So if someone passes away in this country, we would repatriate them back to their home country abroad. But they also did day-to-day funerals as well. Right. So I got an experience of the repatriation work as well as the day-to-day funeral. So you were repatriating people to their countries of origin for burial or cremation. And then you started doing, as you put it, the more sensitive side of the work. yeah so it's so what does that entail was it involved care of the deceased really so dressing people uh getting them ready for families to view them and pay their last respects whereas before they kind of just kept me in a little office right but that is quite particular is that i mean yeah it is because how can i put it our clients are trusting you with their most precious, their precious loved one.

5:26So they have to be able to know that who is handling them is handling them with care and dignity and respect. So you can't just have anyone coming in off the street and then you're let loose with someone's loved one. So it took them a little while, but I understand why, because they needed to know that they trusted me. Right. so i got involved in that part of it and i really enjoyed every aspect of of the work that we were doing um and i just felt that there were things not to say that they were doing wrong but that they could do better right um so that's when i decided that i was going to do my qualifications so what are the qualifications so there's there's a number of qualifications so there's the national association of funeral directors funeral service uh certification and then there's also the same but for funeral directors as well right and that it's kind of one-on-one tutorials uh it's just like being back at uni right how long does that take though to qualify uh it depends on how much you do it's almost like opening university so the more time you put into it the quicker you can do it but because i was working at the same time and it was in evenings it took me about two years I think.

6:44Right. Dinner and evenings after work. So while you were employed in Hertfordshire you were sort of thinking about starting your own? Yeah yeah I was just because I think sometimes you have the, if you have it in you you always want to work for yourself. Because the way I say it is that there are people that want to work for someone and there are other people that want to work for themselves. And I think throughout my life I've always been someone who wanted to work for themselves.

7:17I can't really put it any more than that, really. I mean, I'm always happy to have worked in the places I've worked in, because I've learned a lot, but my overall ambition was always to have my own business. It's extremely challenging. And I don't think - Having your own business? Yeah, it's nonstop. And especially in the funeral business, it's 24-7-365. um, which can impact on, you know. So could you tell me what the business is like now? So, so you, you founded the business in 2010, 2010. Yeah. So you've been doing this 16 years now. Yeah. 16 years this month. How, how busy are you? How many funerals do you organize?

7:59Um, we on average every year, it's about between 220 and 240. Uh, and that's our capacity. in order for us to grow even more i would need to employ another funeral director right um to be able to so you do all of that yourself yeah yeah i've got staff that work and assist me in doing the day-to-day run-ins but i at the moment conduct every single funeral that that we put out um which is difficult because time off um don't really get time off unless it's Easter or Christmas but I'm caught in a bit of a catch-21 because especially at the moment with for me to expand the business needs to expand at the same time in terms of our turnover and the work coming in to justify paying another funeral doctor but I can't get to that until the work comes in yes i see what you mean so it's a it's a big step up in terms of expanding yeah but it's a chicken and egg sort of exactly that i i can see that so so you do all of the so you're sort of hands-on so to speak you're doing this yourself yeah in terms of the the day-to-day funeral i mean i i will go out and conduct a funeral um but my staff will do all of the collections of people when they pass away whether it's at home or in hospital they'll prepare the coffins they'll dress the deceased so they do in the in the beginning i did all of that but as as time has gone on and i've employed staff they kind of do all of that right so how many people do you have on your team uh eight in total so it must be i mean hiring people for this must be it must be quite difficult i mean you have to be very you have to find absolutely the right people.

9:54Yeah, it's really, really difficult. And the industry as a whole is suffering a skills shortage just because we're so particular about the staff that we employ. It makes it more difficult. So out of 20 people that might apply for a job, maybe one might be suitable. And in the funeral business, we don't really deal with mights. It's either yes or no. And what do you look for? What makes someone suitable? It's their reliability, their personality, their appearance I can work on. But it's just that willingness to want to help people in their darkest time. And you can tell, I mean, I see myself as quite a good judge of character, and I can tell straight away, I mean, the staff that work for us now, they are all from that mould.

10:50so and when I first met all of them they they exuded that to me so it was it was quite straightforward but been through lots of interviews and what have you where the people weren't you know straight away they they see the the salary so to speak and the hours and they think oh you are going to apply for that job rather than thinking have I got the skills to execute that job to the best of my ability is your organization prepared for what's coming next at read talent solutions we don't just manage contingent worker programs and fill roles through our rpo solutions we future proof your workforce from scaling operations to upskilling teams and navigating digital transformation we are your strategic partner in building resilient future ready talent ecosystems visit reedtalentsolutions.com today to discover how we can help your business grow.

11:49So reliability, I can see why that's so important. Because you've got to be on time. And personality, what are you looking for? Personality, when the cameras are rolling, excuse the pun, they need to be game face, serious, empathetic. Outside of that, then they just have to have a bit of, because the business that we do is such a sad and somber time, you have to be able to lift yourself up when you're not on the day of the funeral. So you can't be an introvert. And you know, because it wouldn't be good for you. No, it wouldn't be good. It wouldn't take you down and stay in that space. Yeah. And then you because we're such a small team, it brings everyone else down as well.

12:36That's interesting. So you're looking for people actually quite outgoing. Yeah, yeah. But they have to be very quiet and somber when they're doing their job yeah yeah yeah and thankfully thankfully we've got the right balance that's interesting because i i heard about your business through customers of yours who spoke very highly of you who said that you'd organize funerals for their loved ones yeah so um you're obviously you know very good at what you do um what's i mean do people typically choose their funeral director before they die or is it people coming to you from their families afterwards how do you sort of win your business so to speak so essentially when i first started you have to integrate yourself within the community before they'll give you that trust so we're we're not the type of business that you open today and then everyone's flooded in so when i first opened i went to visit all of the churches, ministers, and people that are on the circumference of our business.

13:38And it took a little while. But because in the area that I opened my business, there wasn't really anyone who looks like me doing our business. So that kind of gave me a bit of a foot in the door. In terms of being from your community? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, but they still need to know that you can do the task that has been given to you professionally and comprehensively. So it just took time and trust and what have you. And I think the first thing I did was probably four months after we opened, which was tough really. but then from then it kind of it's just worth our our business is solely on word of mouth right solely word of mouth people have had a good experience yeah so what we've found is that every time you every funeral that we do is an advert for the potential next funeral that you're going to do which is why I'm so strict with my staff so you know don't let your standards slip because there's always someone watching um and over time it's taken us a long time i mean 16 years but now um everyone recommends us i'm not sure if they're supposed to but you know why not i mean i think private private clients you know families and what have you they do um but there are professionals that also i think because they've had an experience of us conducting a funeral within their church or their place of worship, they know that they can rely on us and depend on us to do what we need to do.

15:24So if a family asks them, they can feel confident that the name that they're given them will do what the family wants. So my father sadly died last year, late last year. So we were sort of quite involved organizing a funeral. And it had a woman funeral director, which was typical of dad, called Zoe Millington. I want to call her out from Solon Sons over North Knox, which are, And they were brilliant, actually. They couldn't have been sort of more sympathetic. And they did a really good job. But I was thinking there's so much presentation involved. And every detail has to be right. And it was, I thought, really impressive how they sort of went about their work in such a dignified way.

16:07And that takes quite a lot of training, doesn't it? Because they get a whole team working in unison in that way so that it all runs smoothly. Because you don't want that to go wrong. No, no. such an important moment for a family exactly and it's one of the few things that you can't do again so you can get married once or twice or three times i thought about that yeah i mean you're not meant to but you can't do it again you can do it again but a funeral is it's you're gonna have one yeah you're gonna have one so everything has to be perfect you know so it so this is what you tell your team yeah every every day they probably get sick of hearing it but well it's a good message, you know, it has to be perfect.

16:45Yeah, it has to be perfect. There's no room for, for complacency. Because in life, things are things are going to happen. But it's how you deal with them. You know, if there's a massive accident on the motorway or on your route, there's nothing you can do about it. But you can still do the best that you can to still arrive at where you need to be when you need to be. Yes. So, you know, So do you have sort of routines where you set off a lot earlier than... Always, always. Because... What are your sort of maxims around that? I would prefer to be parked around the corner from the family house and sit there for half an hour rather than us chasing through the streets, which I've seen before, which really upset me because I just thought, all right, the family aren't with you, but you've still got the deceased with you.

17:39so the last one you should be going the same speed from the minute you leave the garage until you get back um so i'd prefer to be sat there just relaxed waiting and then you know if i say i'm going to be at 10 o 'clock 9 59 i'm knocking at the door but you're typically there at 9 30 yeah yeah always right so you're always trying yeah just because if if anything happens you can deal with it you know if there's a an accident or the road shut um which has happened a couple of times and you have to go all the way around especially with the way the councils and local authorities are blocking every other road off yes it's not easy in london at the moment must be difficult it's it's navigating around london is just as hard as doing my day-to-day work so i understand i mean you started off with your community afro-caribbean community and did you give did you give things a different emphasis because of that i was i was thinking about the celebration of life yeah is that something that you brought it wasn't really a different emphasis i kind of honed in on things that i knew that uh our community wanted so for instance white horses and white cars uh whereas other funerals it's probably different now but back then 16 years ago because i know you can't have white horses or you can't have white cars whereas at our place of business as long as it's respectful then you can have it so jazz bands you know anything you can think of which is respectful and dignified will provide it so you mentioned white horses white cars jazz bands what else silver cars we tend to do doves as well orders of service booklets pens little you know all of the keepsakes that people want whereas before people weren't offering them ribbons um so was before was it just black horses is that what yeah just black horses and then i i found a carriage master who had a he had a carriage that he was thinking about painting white and i said to him if you paint it white i'll probably be able to give you quite a lot of work so he painted it white because he had white horses from uh doing weddings so it was just he didn't have a white carriage um so he in the end he painted it took him about six months i don't know what took him so long uh but but as soon as he so you use the same you call them carriage masters yeah they keep they keep the horses and horses and and the carriages as well right um and now we we do equal the amount so as many black horse drawn funerals we do as many white horse drawn funerals do you ever have black and white one it's funny you say that there was a a family that came to see us it must be about eight years ago and she said they were an interracial couple so the lady was white and the gentleman was black and she said can I have a black horse and a white horse and I said well does that mean two different carriage masters because our carriage masters got black and white horses oh right did this trouble you then was it it I had to think about it just because I thought it was a bit of an odd request that I asked her about three times because I thought maybe she was winding me up but she's actually being honest so it's a okay I said well if that's what you want and you're happy with it then you know we'll give it to you and we did it and she was over the moon she had a black carriage so I kind of got 75 % on her but because I prefer the black because I just think they just look they look regal.

21:20I suppose black is what you associate more. Yeah, yeah. And just looking at them next to each other, the blacks look more fitting towards the task that they're assigned to. I think white is more for more joyous occasions. But for our community, a funeral is a celebration of life. So that's the reason they wanted the white horses. So that's the origins of that. I didn't know that. So it's more of a focus on the celebration of the life. Yeah, celebration of life. And the symbolism behind the white is you're going to heaven. So when you're going to go and meet God, then you wear white. Almost angelic, so to speak.

22:02Right. Interesting. Yeah, very, very many Caribbean, Afro-Caribbean funerals. Now, I've seen magnificent horses, white ones, around where I live with white horses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Often flags. yeah yeah yeah i wasn't stopped and take pictures glad i love horses oh yeah so yeah black and white horses yeah so so is that do you typically have two horses or four uh they have a choice they can have two to be fair they can have anything up to six it's just six as well yeah six is uh driving six horses through tottenham that i mean that's quite a task or something yeah yeah the most i've done is is four because aesthetically i mean i have had a couple of families ask me and i said it kind of takes away from the person who's in the carriage.

22:50Because as you're going down the street, you see two horses, then you see the four, then you see six, and then you're kind of - it's too overwhelming. And it takes away from what you're - you're trying to, for want of a better phrase, showcase your loved one to the community, but yet you've got six horses charging down. You feel that's too many horses. too many it's it's overkill yeah so two or four would be your recommendation yeah four yeah so in the period you've been organizing funerals have they changed a lot has have people's tastes and preferences changed or is there a real consistency around this uh covid um you know what happened with covid that must have been very hard it's hardest time of my life that was the only time that i think that i considered that maybe i needed to stop doing what i'm doing just because it was so intense.

23:41Yeah, it was... Because what was making it more intense? They couldn't have people at the funerals? It was just intense just because the phone literally didn't stop ringing. And every single phone call was someone had passed away, which is extremely rare. And it was depressing because you knew people were cooped up at home and you could feel their frustrations, especially at the beginning where the government guidelines were you could only have six people at the funeral. well i had a couple of cases where the deceased had 10 children so who makes that who makes that call and the government didn't really help us they said well those are the rules and you enforce them and the police were very much of the same ilk where you deal with it and we're like well we didn't implement these rules but yet you're asking us to enforce them which was stressful because we're the ones that are giving the families the bad news so they're just kind of not attacking us but they're taking their they're venting their frustration out on us and we're like well it's not really our fault but you know what can you do um and it was just it was just i can see how difficult that because it's such an emotional difficult time for families and yeah told that you can't have all your children at someone yeah it's just father's or mother's funeral.

24:57Yeah, exactly. You know, it was really tough. And it was tough for just the volumes for the first three months after we got locked down. It was just literally nonstop. I was working seven days a week. And psychologically, it was tough, not only dealing with the number of people that passed away, but driving to work and not seeing anyone else on the road had a real impact on me just because I you know when you just feel think to yourself has the world ended and I didn't get the memo and that's what kept going from my mind every day that I drove to work and came home and when we eventually opened up again and what have you it still haunted me just because it was just it was just airy yeah I suppose doing what you were doing that was you were particularly aware of that yeah and there was no so you were a key worker as they were called at the time yeah so you were allowed out and about yeah Yeah, which we were grateful for, but it was just a really, really tough time.

26:00And there was no celebration of life, it was just a case of almost a means to an end. Someone had passed away and you need to lay them to rest. So that was quite depressing for us because we're used to - you know, you get some funerals that everyone's dressed in black and sombre and what have you. but to lift you up again towards the end of the week, you might have one which is a little bit more uplifting. So dealing with that psychologically was difficult as well. Yeah. Really. So it became more of a sort of processing the disease. Yeah, yeah. And it was - A task-based rather than a celebration.

26:37Yeah, we were doing like four or five funerals a day, and it was literally 15 minutes. So the hearse would pull up to the cemetery, we'd lay the person to rest, and then we'd come back, collect another person, do the same. And there was no - I mean, a funeral is not so much for the person who's passed away, it's for the people that are left behind. And them not having that process of being able to grieve properly, because it's all done and finished in 15 minutes, is heartbreaking, really. And we saw that that impacted and still impacts people to this day, you know, five, six years on, because weren't allowed to grieve.

27:21So yeah, things changed then I think for the worst because as we were doing what we call a direct funeral, the direct funeral model kind of pushed forward. So you have people advertising on TV now saying you know we'll take care of everything and it's there's no involvement of the family in that process. And because of what happened in COVID, that has accelerated their growth. Because a lot of people thought, well, back in COVID, we couldn't do anything, so why should we do anything now? So we're seeing that market has increased, and it's kind of taken away from the traditional funeral. You call that the direct?

28:07Yeah. So what does that mean? Literally. So someone will pass away, you phone a call center, give them all of the documentation. They'll handle collecting the deceased, cremating them or burying them. And then at the end of the process, they give you back the ashes, which is soulless. So there's no gathering to remember the person? No whatsoever. It literally is soulless. Yeah. But I suppose it's cheap. Is it the economics of that? They market it as if it is cheap, But I could still do a, so to speak, direct funeral with the family participating. They just wouldn't be able to go to church and then go on to the cemetery or the crematorium.

28:53We could do it directly at the cemetery or directly at the crematorium for the same price. But because these companies have got more marketing power, they've kind of hypnotized the population into thinking that they are doing them a greater service at a greater price because they're spending money on television yeah and that's what i say to families whenever they call me i say if you knew how much it costs to advertise on television you know that that company is not doing you any favors because it has to know how much it costs to advertise on television because we do that and it's expensive it's expensive i Tell me what funerals cost.

29:31What would you be talking about? What's the sort of range? On average, these days, between three and a half thousand to five thousand, on average. But if you wanted horses and everything? Horses, add an extra£1 ,300,£1 ,400. Right. So three and a half to five thousand on average, but maybe up to six and a half if you want a horse. Yeah, yeah. Right. But these direct cremation companies will say that they'll do it for I don't know,£1 ,200. Right. Which I find that quite, as you say, it's just soulless. I can't imagine doing that for one of my loved ones and that you send them off and they come back as ashes.

30:16Yeah, and you haven't had any... But that's a popular alternative now. And you say that's because of the what happened in the pandemic 100 introduced that 100 but what you said to me earlier was that you felt that people were still feeling the consequences of that in a negative way yeah years later because they hadn't been able to grieve properly yeah i spoke to a lady it must be about three four weeks ago and she said oh you did my mom's funeral during the pandemic i said oh you remember me and we were talking talking and she said i'm still um aggrieved by the fact that i wasn't able to give my mum what she deserved.

30:55Because I think with her mum's funeral, I think we were up to 10 people, and she was quite a popular lady, so there would have been at least a couple of hundred people there, church service and singing and so on and so forth. But we picked them up from the house and we took them to the cemetery. And she still feels... because in the Afro-Cadibian community, we tend to speak about the final farewell quite a lot, so it's very important to us. So to be denied that opportunity when outside of your control is something that you will take with you to your end. This lady, she was so... I could see it in her face, she wasn't just saying it, I could see the pain in her eyes that she was denied the opportunity to give her mum that send off.

31:50So, you know, time is a healer, but it's not... So do people often discuss what type of funerals they want to have long before they die? Yeah, there's always, I say, elder ladies who I see when I'm out on a funeral who say, oh yeah you're going to do our funeral and they say I want this and I want that and I'm just and I say to them you've got to remember everyone's request yeah yeah just worry about what you're worry about living you know write it down yeah write it down and we'll deal with it when the time comes and forget about it don't keep thinking you know this is what I want for my funeral think about what you want to do with your grandchildren you know because that sounds like good advice to me yeah and you'll take care of it yeah just write down a few requests yeah Yeah, I mean, there are people that do funeral plans.

32:43I think in the past few years, it's kind of tailed off a little bit because of the financial pressures that people are under. Funeral plan where you put money aside. Yeah, where you put money aside and you can write down your requests that you want for your funeral. And then that's given to the funeral director, your next of kin, and then you've got one. So those three parties know what you want when that time comes. But we've seen that there's been a lot of funeral plans that have been cancelled just because of... Is that a service you offer, a funeral plan, or is it other people? We facilitate them.

33:16So the government changed the regulations on it about three, four years ago because there was no regulation. So every man and his dog was selling funeral plans, and there was a company that went bust and lost about£20 million worth of people's money. Oh, that's bad. Yeah. And then the government steps in and said, hold on a minute, And they looked at the industry along with our associations and said, well, this isn't regulated. So now it's regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. So it's a financial service, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they recognize that. So you have to be financial FCA regulated.

33:57Yeah, and I could do it, but I'm a funeral doctor. I'm not a financial consultant. So for me to keep up with the training that's involved with that sector to be able to sell a funeral plan isn't really for me. Whereas the funeral planning companies that can sell the plans, they can nominate us as a funeral director. Right. So they have to come to us in the end. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just thinking about running the business. What are your key challenges? We're post-pandemic, thank goodness. and society's gone back to more normal, not completely, but ways of being. What are your principal challenges now?

34:43I think the day-to-day running a business in the UK, business rates, fuel, national insurance, those are the challenges that, I mean, we've got the client base. You're talking cost-sit. Yeah, costs is just, I mean. So you mentioned business rates, fuel, and national insurance. The three principles. And insurance as well. Insurance too. Yeah. They are, every year they go up, regardless of what happens. I just renewed our fleet insurance, and that's gone up. And I said to them, but I have a claim for like seven years. Yes. Yeah, but the industry, you know, it's the usual insurance spiel. Prices only seem to go up.

35:30They never ever come down. I can't remember the last time anything ever came down. It's ridiculous. So that's a pressure which then all of those pressures will impact our families because it will mean that we need to put our prices up. And I hate putting our prices up because I'm of the ilk that we provide a certain service at a certain price. And I've been able to kind of weather that storm in the last 16 years. But now it's come to a point whereby I'm having to put it out even though I don't want to, because we financially have to, otherwise we won't survive. And that sticks in my core, if I'm honest.

36:17So national insurance is interesting to me, because that's the cost of employing people. Yeah. So this is becoming more expensive. are you finding it harder to hire people or is it yeah just because it's the extra expense that comes with employing someone so I would like to employ at least another two or three people but the cost of that has gone up significantly whereby I wouldn't be able to sustain everyone else if I took those people on because the national insurance is so much more I think on average it cost me I think at least another five or six hundred pounds a month off the top of my head which is a lot for a small business So what you're saying if I hear you correctly Damien is that you if the national insurance hadn't gone up as much you'd be employing two or three more people Yeah I would have definitely taken at least one maybe two So if you replicate that up and down the land that's a lot of people who would be working that maybe have been stopped working by these extra costs That's exactly it and if I don't have that staff then I can't grow the business to the level I want it to go and therefore then we pay less corporation tax.

37:30Yeah, so it's a self-defeating tax. Because if the business was growing, you'd have more tax to contribute in other ways. Yeah, and then the employees would be spending more money. So then that's more... The government would be spending less on welfare. People sitting at home. Yeah, that's exactly it. it's it's it's a it's a it's kind of it's upsetting to me because i think it's the people that are making their decisions never ask the people that are feel the consequences of their decisions they seem to know it all yes um you know seem to know it all yeah yeah yeah i'm just being i'm just being perfectly honest because yeah i'm interested You've got to say, because you're in the sharp end of all this.