The GFG Blog
2022Jul
St. Margaret’s Hospice Funerals. It’s over.
Fran Hall
Jul
27
1 comment
It gives us no pleasure at all to report that the ill-fated venture embarked on by the CEO of St. Margaret’s Hospice in Somerset back in 2017 has come to an end. A statement on the website was posted today, and today’s edition of the Somerset County Gazette confirmed an email that we received
2022Mar
500 days
Fran Hall
Mar
02
1 comment
Oh my love. 500 days have passed. 500 days without you in my world. How have I got through these days? I remember as clear as if it were yesterday the moment that you died, the sudden knowledge that everything – everything had changed. Everything about that
2021Nov
Funeral Photography
Fran Hall
Nov
23
5 comments
Funeral photographer Rachel Wallace (Photo credit Louise Winter) On Sunday 22nd November 2021, something magical happened. As the sun rose, Natasha Bradshaw, the inspirational superintendent of Mortlake Crematorium opened the gates to Mortlake’s beautiful grounds, and a trickle of people started to arrive for a day that would
2021Oct
Standardised price lists for all
Fran Hall
Oct
11
No Comments
Regular readers of the GFG blog will know that we have been calling for transparency in the funeral sector for well over a decade. Last month, on 16th September, a seismic shift finally occurred when the Competition and Markets Authority’s Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021 finally came into effect.
2021Jul
Isolation
Fran Hall
Jul
16
1 comment
Photo credit: Rachel Wallace Photography Day 271. Almost nine months into this new existence. The last couple of weeks have been difficult. I’ve been feeling unwell, symptoms of a bad cold which are, apparently, also symptoms of someone double vaccinated who has contracted the Delta variant. A lateral flow
2021May
Poetry and signs
Fran Hall
May
26
1 comment
A dear friend sent me a poem at the weekend. Technically, she re-sent it, she had shared it with me soon after Steve died, so the words were familiar, and yet the second I started to read them, the fragile skin I have so painfully grown over the depthless well
2021Apr
The Competition and Markets Authority’s Funeral Market Report – update
Fran Hall
Apr
29
No Comments
“Now is not the time” On April 7th a document published by the Ministry of Justice quietly appeared in the public domain. It was the government’s ‘Response to the Competition and Markets Authority’s Funeral Market Report’, and it does not make for good reading for anyone who believes that
Love writ large
Fran Hall
Apr
10
1 comment
Love writ large. That’s something I heard a passer-by say quietly as they walked along Albert Embankment this week. They were walking along the National Covid Memorial Wall, with tears running down their cheeks. Thousands and thousands of others have walked the 500m length of the wall of
2021Mar
Finding words
Fran Hall
Mar
24
1 comment
I think I understand now why the sea is so often used as a metaphor when talking or writing about emotions. When I’m trying to understand how I’m feeling, the descriptive words in my mind are almost always found in analogies to do with the oceans – the waves,
We all know how this ends.
Fran Hall
Mar
19
No Comments
We have been asked to write about a new book, ‘We all know how this ends’ by end of life doula Anna Lyons and progressive funeral director Louise Winter. It was published yesterday by Bloomsbury and celebrated with virtual tea and cake in a moving, inspiring Zoom session last night.
