Cruel and all too usual
There’s a good, long piece in the Huffington Post by Lloyd I Sederer, a doctor, describing his mother’s decline and death. He describes a problem which is going to become more and more common. Longevity is not all it’s cracked up to be. If we are lucky enough live into ripe old age, our dying […]
Geek watch: no service by request
I always enjoy my weekly perusal of my favourite obits page in the Victoria Times Colonist, BC, Canada because (as you may know) I wonder if it describes a trend in the end-of-life event business which will cross the Atlantic. There are also some finely wrought word portraits of those who have died. Eleven deaths […]
Rite and trite
There’s an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian about funeral rites in the Church of England Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Here are some tasters: Life expectancy in Tudor England was mid thirties, and about a third of children died before attaining the age of ten. Mortality was very much in the air and on the […]
No way
Have you been following the hullabaloo which greeted the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, when he restated Church rules on funerals and reiterated the ban on ‘secular items’ at funerals – romantic ballads, pop or rock music, political songs, football club songs, that sort of stuff? He said: “At the funerals of children […]
Pot ash
When ceramist Chris Smedley was asked by a client if he could make a unique commemorative piece using the ashes of the client’s father, he didn’t know what to expect. When he set about experimenting by using the ash in a glaze, he found that it produced a range of colours from green to blue […]
Cheap boos
Real ale made by boutique brewers has at last begun to drive down sales of lager for the first time in half a century reports yesterday’s Observer. Intriguingly, the Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) reports that while its 420 members enjoyed a combined sales rise of 4 per cent last year, its smallest and boutique-iest […]
Something else for the weekend
Here’s a lovely story about how they did things in a braver and more beautiful age. The occasion is the unveiling of a memorial on Patcham Down to the 53 Indian soldiers who died in the first world war. It stands just yards (metres for younger readers) from the Chattri Memorial, which stands on the […]
Knowing you knowing best
Yesterday I drove to Norfolk to meet Anne Beckett-Allen and her husband Simon. It was well worth every mile of the journey. They greeted me with warmth and kindness. They took me somewhere nice for lunch. And we chatted – oh, about death and funerals, mostly. What else? Anne and Simon have been notably successful. […]
The female of the species is more deathy than the male?
I’ve been doing my bit to promote the Good Funeral Guide (all the while thinking that, really, if it’s any good, it’ll do that for itself). If I send a press release to a local radio station, chances are they’ll interview me. I go and sit in front of a mike and answer predictable questions: […]
Grave houses
A delightful post here from Tammi Thiele over at Escape to the Silent Cities. Tammi is a graveyard rabbit to her fingertips. She was married in a graveyard. Dressed in full Victorian mourning. On Hallowe’en. I’d never heard or read of grave houses before I came across this. They seem to be native to the […]
