John G. Corse Funeral Directors

11/03/2026

We had multiple enquiries about funeral plans over the past couple of months when it was really busy with funerals. Thankfully Malcolm is back at work now to ease the pressure, anyone wishing to discuss pre paid funeral plans get in touch to make an appointment.

21/02/2026

Our Peedie Gregor ❤️

Gregor is Iona’s son - grandson of John and Etta, and nephew to Ross and Calum.

We are all so incredibly proud of him and would really appreciate all donations and messages of support for him.

You can donate to his JustGiving page using the following link

https://www.justgiving.com/page/iona-corse-1

17/01/2026

Happy 50th Malc 🥳

Happy Birthday to our funeral director Malcolm Scott, unfortunately he cant celebrate as usual due to recovering from a double hip replacement but we wish him well in his recovery and look forward to having him back. I’m sure he’ll mark the milestone when back on the go! 🍻Maybe at 50 he’ll be wiser to get a better football top 🤷🏼‍♂️

05/01/2026

The funeral of the late Douglas Scott is postponed due to the current weather. An updated day and time will be posted on our website. www.johncorsefunerals.co.uk/funeral-announcements

12/12/2025

Calum captured some cracking photos of the northern lights over the funeral home tonight. Too good not to share 🌌

02/12/2025

HOLLY WREATHS

Anyone who is looking for a Holly Wreath for their loved one’s grave this year, please contact Flooers, the florist division of our business, and we will reserve these for you.

Spares of these will be very limited, so please message the page now so as we can have these ready for you.

‼️⚠️HOLLY WREATH PRE ORDER ⚠️‼️

🌿 Everyone who has already pre ordered a wreath, they will be ready for collecting from TUESDAY 9TH DECEMBER

🌲 We always get our wreaths in and decorated the first weekend in December. This means they are fresh throughout December, and most likely to last throughout the festives on your loved ones graves

🌿 We still have space to take more pre orders - so PM us if you would like to order your fresh holly wreath.

🌲 These always sell out, so we highly recommend pre ordering.

🌿 Another year of no price increase on these too - sticking at only £25!

31/10/2025

Great work by the team at W R Tullock & Sons Ltd once again. We’re all pleased with the latest addition👌🏻. 🌷💐🚐
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Fh4AKQzHW/?mibextid=wwXIfr

27/10/2025

A huge thank you to everyone for your kind comments after our appearance on Enterprising Orkney on Radio Orkney. Thank you to Karen for inviting us along for a chat. I hope everyone enjoyed the music choices 😀 if you haven’t heard it you can still have a listen.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16ZrJnt6UC/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Hear the Corse family talk about operating one of the best known businesses in Orkney. Programme link in comments.

Operating as John G. Corse Funeral Directors, they have touched the lives of most families across the islands over the years.

Listen to them in conversation with Karen Scholes in the first Enterprising Orkney programme of this new winter season of Radio Orkney evening programmes on BBC Sounds.

We’re grateful to John, Calum, Ross and Iona for taking the time to come into the studio and tell us all about what it’s like growing up in the funeral business, and the hard work and effort they’ve put in to building the business to where it is today.

They had so much to talk about they even forgot to mention John’s MBE! This programme was first broadcast at 6pm on Monday 13th October.

13/10/2025

Tune in tonight at 6pm to hear us interview by Karen Scholes on Enterprising Orkney.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1J5KSxipWN/?mibextid=wwXIfr

07/10/2025

Congratulations to our Funeral Director Malcolm Scott, who just completed his final IFD courses and achieved his certificate in Funeral Practice.

Malcolm completed 4 separate courses to achieve his certificate in funeral practice-
Health and safety
Foundation funeral practitioner
Funeral operative
Funeral arranging and administrative

We are extremely proud of Malcolm who has worked very hard over the past 18months to complete all his courses.

Malcolm’s certificates have taken pride of place on the wall along with Ross and Calum’s.

28/06/2025

It was with huge devastation to the Corse family and the wider community of Orkney when John Corse Senior passed away very suddenly on 28th June 1995 at the age of 63.
John Corse Junior had been helping out part time within the business, juggling his time around his full time job of a carpet fitter, and being there for his young family.
When his father, John Corse Senior passed away, John Corse Junior decided to make the career change to keep the business going.
This marks a major milestone within the business, making it 30 years today since John Corse Junior took over management of the business (being the not so junior John Corse that you know today!)
Please join us in congratulating John on this major milestone in his career.
Further posts will follow on the achievements he has made over the years.

26/06/2025

When John Corse (senior) took the business on, it moved away from Palace Road, as he rented a section of the old BT buildings on Old Scapa Road behind the licensing office shown below.

After around 5 years of being at Old Scapa Road, he then moved to Glaitness Road unfortunately there’s just a present day photo to share, where he stayed until around 1990. Both these premises were just used as coffin storage and a workshop for furnishing coffins.

Back then families had the choice of using the OIC owned Rolls Royce Hearse known as the ‘toon hearse’ or the funeral directors estate cars as a lower cost option. Ours was a black Citroen CX estate. Unfortunately the only photo we have is below of only the front. Ross started his training young as you can see - but he’s got a bigger bucket now!

The early 90s was probably the start of major milestones for the business under John snr, firstly his own premises built in Hatston Industrial Estate. This was a coffin store, workshop and a garage. The garage was required as a hearse was in the pipeline!

The summer of 1992 it arrived. John Jnr and Clive Bews made the trip to Worksop to collect the Daimler DS420 hearse.

Once again, if you have any stories or photos to share with us of the business in this era we would love if you could share this with us.
Further posts will follow of the next stages of the business.