Make your own carryyouoffin
From the Waikato Times, New Zealand: A Hamilton high school night class offering people the chance to build their own coffin has been inundated with budding box builders looking to cut funeral costs. Clyde Sutton, a Fraser High School relief teacher, said a surprising amount of community interest was behind the move to teach carpentry […]
An affair of the heart
From today’s Daily Telegraph: Dedicated Winston Howes, 70, spent a week planting each oak sapling after his wife of 33 years Janet died suddenly 17 years ago. He laid out the fledgling trees in a six-acre field but left a perfect heart shape in the middle – with the point facing in the direction of […]
Simile of the day
“This was the last of the fast Oval pitches. If Malcolm hadn’t taken nine for 57, there might have been a case for making Harry Brind the man of the match. Brind, in his last season as head groundsman at Surrey, produced a glorious wicket: hard, fast and as true as a dying man’s final […]
Simple solution
We had an enquiry the other day about simple funerals. Our enquirer had visited the website of a funeral director, surveyed the components of their simple funeral (as prescribed by the NAFD at 11.4), and reckoned it would do nicely. The cost was £1640. All our enquirer wanted on top was a limousine. He gave […]
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted on behalf of Mrs Mollington by Barry I have not been well lately so Barry, Daisy’s lovely friend, is kindly typing this as I dictate my latest ‘Thoughts’. He is an excellent touch-typist despite having builder’s hands. He’s smiling – he’s a retired English teacher. But I don’t think he’ll mind if I proof-read it […]
Stat of the day
A study in Finland (1996) found that men are 30% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, and 20% more likely to die thereafter. Women, on the other hand, are 20% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, falling […]
The Common and the particular
Posted by Vale I like these men and women who have to do with death, Formal, gentle people whose job it is, They mind their looks, they use words carefully. I liked that woman in the sunny room One after the other receiving such as me Every working day. She asks the things she must […]
Interdependence
Posted by Vale We were saying farewell to a very old lady – nearly 99 – who had spent her last years living in a care home. She had no family there and, apart from myself and the organist, there were just four people present, all of them members of staff from the Care Home. […]
Before I die
Posted by Vale At the Southbank Deathfest in January one of the best features was the wall that invited people to write down what it was that they wanted to do before they died. The idea began in New Orleans when artist Candy Chang pasted the first ‘Before I Die’ wall on the side of […]
Last things
Posted by Vale When I was at school there was a short lived craze for making yourself faint. If I recall, you hyperventilated and then got a friend to squeeze you round the chest, at which point you passed out. It’s now claimed that this is equivalent to a near death experience. There’s a discussion […]
