Claire’s last word
Everyone looks at other people differently according to what they do. Hairdressers scan your hair, dentists your teeth, snobs your shoes… Undertakers? Why, they measure you for your coffin of course. Surveying a funeral, the preoccupations of an undertaker are quite different from those of anybody else. Ordinary folk take in the procession, the flowers, […]
Indy undertakers on the counter-attack
Saif’s IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey published in February 2010 was dynamite. It showed that independents are generally cheaper than two big beasts of the industry, Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity. Had Saif got the message out to the funeral-buying public it would have hit the big beasts’ bottom line bigtime. But the message never got out, […]
Sarah Walton’s memorial birds and birdbaths
Sarah Walton, a potter of 35 years’ standing, whose work can be found in 13 museums in Britain, is a great favourite of the Good Funeral Guide. We admire and like her work enormously. Here, she tells us about her work: For years I’ve sold my Birdbaths as simply that. Only recently has it occurred […]
Parish notices
First, an event, Dying to Live. It is organised by Archa Robinson at Living and Dying Consciously and is billed as: Suitable for anyone facing death in the next 90 yrs… a reflective, meditative, poignant, life changing and fun weekend ! Here’s more: We live in a society conditioned to deny death. It’s a taboo subject […]
A real funeral
When Fiona Hughes died of cancer in September ’10, her sister Dina, her family, and Melanie, Fiona’s daughter, followed their hearts and gave her a colourful, creative, fear-free and happily sad funeral which embodied the customs, culture and language of her family (if not those of their funeral director). She wrote the following uplifting account […]
Dem bones
Here’s one of those ‘only in America’ stories: The owner of Memory Gardens Cemetery says he did nothing wrong disposing of human remains that were used for medical research. A resident called police after finding the piles of bones out in the open on cemetery property … Parker says he’s sorry if people are hurt, […]
Going down
This from the monochrom website: In the age of data mining, a person’s sex life may contain less embarrassing details than their web search history. Does it make sense that the former is a tightly guarded secret while the latter is shared with anonymous corporations daily? Even though a sexual nature is one of the […]
Cunning stunt
A consumers’ co-operative whose aim is to enable ordinary working people to buy things they would not otherwise be able to afford; one which exists to provide a service for its members rather than generate profits for shareholders. A good thing, yes? It gets better. This consumers’ co-op also has an altruistic, ethical agenda for […]
Relieved to be British
Many American funerary practices are so barking mad I don’t bother writing about them. This blog is Britcentric not because it is xenophobic or incurious but simply because it confines itself to goings-on of relevance to Brits. Sure, we’ve picked up one or two bad habits from the US. Embalming may or may not be […]
The only way round is through
Once upon a time people dreaded dying. They couldn’t be sure it would be painless. They dreaded being dead, too. Some feared the unknown. Others lamented the end of their existence. A very few people had no fear whatever of being dead because they trusted in a joy-drenched afterlife. But even these people dreaded dying. […]
