Hamine Eggs – ‘life ends, and life begins’
Posted by Sweetpea I love reading Nigella Lawson’s cookery books just as much as I love cooking and eating the food she understands and describes so well. There is a particularly wonderful section called ‘Funeral Feast’ in her 2004 book ‘Feast’, published by Chatto & Windus. Please find a copy and read it in full. […]
I left my shoes and socks there….
Posted By Charles The Good Funeral Guide Blog is off on its travels again and, although I can now connect to the Internet while I journey, expect only intermittent and – even by this blog ‘s standards – erratic postings. But you are all on holiday too! In fact there are, apparently, 14 million of […]
Live burial – can you help?
Posted by Charles Once in a while we get a really interesting email here at the sweatshop we call GFG Central. The toiling minions are, as I write, clustering round the screen of the recipient. I’ll have to whip them back to their desks in a moment. The point is, it’s not for them. It’s […]
Endangered species
Posted by Charles Cowling There are many unsung heroes of the funeral industry – people who work very hard for the bereaved but whose efforts go mostly unrecognised and unthanked unless they screw up bigtime. So let’s hear it today for crematorium chapel attendants. All chapel attendants are not heroes. Some are surly, some indolent, […]
We gonna celebrate your party with you… (Kool and the Gang)
Posted by Sweetpea Am I alone in sensing a nasty niff? The vague whiff, perhaps, of a fashionable diktat in the air? I know it’s not really the done thing, but I have to confess to feeling a little oppressed by the phrase ‘celebration of life’. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a celebratory kinda […]
RT @GoodFunerals
This is the time of year when the Reaper takes a break and catches some rays, giving undertakers a chance to do housekeeping chores, and celebrants a chance to starve. There’s not a lot going on out there. I can’t begin to tell you what a quiet week it’s been. These are the best I could […]
Top Ten Tips for arranging a funeral
Posted by Moss At the risk of seeming rather tabloid, especially during a difficult period for the press, we recently produced a list of tips for people who are arranging or planning a funeral. I presented this to a group of hospice workers and bereavement professionals who had a number of good suggestions to make, […]
Timing your exit
Posted by Charles Cowling Extracted from an article in yesterday’s New York Times: I hope you had the chance to read and reread Dudley Clendinen’s splendid essay, “The Good Short Life”. Clendinen is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S. If he uses all the available medical technology, it will leave him, in a few years’ […]
Colourful Funerals
Posted by Belinda Forbes As a secular funeral celebrant, I’ve noticed a growing trend for colour at funerals – this could be a general request to wear bright colours or a suggestion to wear something in a particular colour. At one young man’s funeral, the theme was yellow: as well as people wearing yellow ties […]
Home Death by Nell Dunn
Posted by Pippa Wilcox I wish I could tell you that the real-life stories portrayed in Nell Dunn’s play Home Death are over-dramatised. But they aren’t. It seems to be a terrifyingly random lottery out there in terms of whether or not you will stumble across the sort of care package which will result […]
