Jayne Graham is an Independent Civil Celebrant servicing families and funeral services across Tyne & Wear and County Durham.
Background
Originally from Gateshead and educated in Durham and Newcastle, Jayne returned from West Yorkshire to the North East in the late 1990s to marry and bring up a family. Having spent over 35 years working in the small business and charities sectors, Jayne semi-retired from full time employment in 2023.
Jayne continues to support local and regional charities, both as a volunteer and as a freelance strategy specialist and coach. She has also recently been appointed as a local Magistrate, alongside her commitment to providing personalised civil celebrant services to help families and funeral services across Tyne & Wear and County Durham.
Funeral Celebrant
With her many years of experience in all aspects of storytelling and communications, discovering and carefully crafting a narrative in a unique and insightful way, Jayne has been recognised as someone with the skill and experience to prepare and deliver fitting and thoughtful funeral services for cremations and burials. Receiving sincere and welcome thanks from a family and funeral director following a service gives Jayne a huge pride that she has done the best she can possibly do, and she is committed to aiming for nothing less.
Jayne has told her own story of training as a Civil Celebrant, describing her first experience of supporting a family for the first time with the preparation and delivery of a funeral service as they said goodbye to a well loved member of their family. You can read it here.
Honours
Jayne was proud to be awarded an MBE in the Late Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours List for services to the small business community in the North East. She was presented with her award by the King (Prince Charles at the time) at an Investiture Ceremony at Buckingham Palace in February 2017 surrounded by her family, and dedicated the award to the people, like her, who work hard every day to make a difference to people’s lives.