Don’t miss Gail’s 30 Day Challenge
I can’t keep up these days, dammit. To my great grief I missed the start of one of the great events of the year, Gail Rubin’s annual 30 Day Challenge. She attends 30 funerals in 30 days, and each day writes each one up in great detail in a values-neutral narrative. Goodness knows where she’s […]
Whither consecrated woodland burial sites?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Back in 2001, The Telegraph ran a story about the Church of England opening its first woodland burial site, Arbory Trust, a consecrated 40-acre plot in Cambridgeshire with trees and flowers replacing gravestones. ‘Other sites cater for pagans and ‘New Age’ followers and do not offer a Christian burial,’ claimed the newspaper […]
Joy of Death Convention – 7-9 September
It’s a fantastic lineup of brilliant speakers and a great clan gathering — and it’s not too late to buy a ticket! Saturday 8 September All the talks will be in the Lower Gardens Suite of the Whitehall Hotel, unless otherwise stated. 9.30am – 10.00 – Reception at the Whitehall Hotel (teas and coffees) 10.00 Barbara […]
It’s all hotting up for the funeral Oscars
Apologies from the editorial team here at the GFG-Batesville Tower for the recent blog dribble if you’re one of those who enjoy the customary daily torrent. We have been traversing the country with the TV crew who are making a half-hour documentary about the upcoming funeral Oscars ceremony in Bournemouth this Friday. It’s not too […]
So silly to take sides
A few weeks ago I bumped into a funeral director I like and admire. He was bursting with something he had just learned and needed to share: Ken West is not bonkers, official. He’d met Ken at some do or other and had revelled in a feast of reason and a flow of soul with the great […]
I wish
I wish I wish we’d had more time, To talk about the life you lead, the things you saw, your thoughts left unsaid. I wish we’d looked to our futures, yours and mine, Shared paths, different lengths of time, I should have followed where you led. I wish I knew what really made you […]
What price eternity?
Following Michael Jarvis’s piece earlier today, I’m beginning to wonder whether death-denial isn’t more prevalent among the elderly than the young. In the September Oldie magazine (strapline: ‘ticking the right boxes’) agony aunt Mavis Nicholson prints a couple of letters from readers: Dear Mavis Re your piece in the Summer issue on dying, I’m so glad I’m […]
Taboo or not taboo?
Posted by Michael Jarvis, onetime Manager of the Natural Death Centre For very many people in the UK ‘death’ is a subject left unmentioned. If you are reading this then you are part of a minority. A minority, furthermore, who would generally like to see more public openness regarding dying, death and funerals. We know the benefits: […]
J’accuse!
It was always going to be risky, this business of recommending funeral directors. We set out purposefully, hoping for the best with the best possible intentions, knowing that if you’re going to make anything in this world, you’re going to make mistakes. We’re optimists. It seemed, and still seems, to be a good thing to do, to […]
