Peter Miller with his pet cocker spaniels

UNEXPECTEDLY for a funeral director, “Do you mind if I swear?” was usually the first thing Peter Miller would ask his customers when they walked through his door to talk about the death of a loved one.

His directness and born-and-bred Islington style would end up being what customers most loved about him, remembered his family as they laid him to rest on Saturday.

“This place was everything for him,” said his nephew Mark “Trigger” Miller, about Peter’s commitment to WG Millers in Essex Road, the “oldest family-run funeral directors in Islington”.

More than 200 people attended father-of-four Peter’s funeral at St Marylebone Crematorium after his death on April 1 following a long illness. It was held on a Saturday so other funeral directors could attend.

“They had to take it on young, it was basically dropped on them, aged 25 and 19,” said Trigger about how Peter and his brother Andrew took over the 105-year-old business in 1992 after their father, Michael Miller, had a stroke.

“For years it was just him and my dad. It was not a great place when they took it on. The pair of them took it to where it is now.”

Originally started in 1919 by William George Miller, the business was later taken over by his daughter Gladys – “a really strong woman apparently” – before his grandson Michael took the reins.

Describing its popularity under the brothers, Trigger said: “They made everything very comfortable and very easy, and people loved him for the very straight-talking way that he did it. He was very direct. He didn’t flower things up. People really appreciated it because he’d be like ‘you don’t have to spend money on stuff you don’t want to. I’ll tell you what you need, stop getting caught up in certain aspects’. There wasn’t any of this ‘sorry for your loss’ stuff.”

Peter and his brother Andrew in the early 2000s

Aside from the straight talking, Trigger put the business’s success in part down to the way the brothers could be found in local pubs just like their customers. “They turned it into a community hub,” he said.

After running it together for 30 years, Andrew retired in 2022, while Peter stepped away from the business last September and was hoping to move to Brighton, where his son Tom lives, before he became unwell.

Trigger has taken over running the business alongside his brother Stuart and Peter’s son George.

A photo of a traffic-stopping 40-limo funeral procession down Archway Road, for a member of a prominent local family, complete with floral hearses and a team of horses, hangs above what used to be Peter’s desk in the office.

“He was proud of that funeral,” said his nephew.

Peter was born in 1961 to Jean and Michael and raised in the rooms above the funeral business in Essex Road, which are now used as offices.

He met his wife Claire horse riding in 1981 and they went on to have four children.

An “outdoorsy person,” he was a lover of shooting who spent many happy moments in Cambridge pheasant hunting.

It was while shooting in Galway, Ireland, that he found a piece of farm land which he bought and turned into a three-bed property that he and Andrew would share with their families over summer.

“He could do anything with his hands,” said George, who recalled how Peter built his kids a treehouse one summer at their home in Barnet.

“He was really practical, so if he hadn’t been a funeral director I think he would have liked to do that, or maybe something in the army.”

He added: “He had a good heart, and he was very well loved. I loved him. Everyone loved him. The business came first in our lives.”

Peter leaves behind his children Tom, 33, George, 30, Conor, 27, Freya, 20, and his cocker spaniels Dave and Charlie.