Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington Editor’s note: before reading Lyra’s latest thoughts, it may be helpful to read last week’s Thoughts of a funeral-goer. When we saw a sign for the crematorium on the outskirts of Aldershot, my heart sank. Not a café in sight – only garages and car showrooms. Barry’s face lit up for a […]
Catch 22 for the disadvantaged
A sad story here, and a sorry end we are likely to see more of. It was a Conservative government that introduced the Social Fund Funeral Payment at a level that ensured that the underprivileged and disadvantaged were not humiliated and marginalised when they had insufficient to pay for a funeral. How times have changed. Public […]
Hot and noisy
From time to time we consider the purpose of a funeral as an event which enables mourners to express complex, disorderly emotion. Funerals in countries untouched by, or resistant to, chilly Nordic Protestant norms of self-restraint are notable for an exuberance which chilly Nords tend to regard as unbefitting, chaotic and emotionally incontinent. It’s not […]
The importance of a good end
Ever heard of the peak-end rule? In the words of Wikipedia: According to the peak–end rule, we judge our experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak and how they ended, regardless of valency [duration] (whether pleasant or unpleasant). Other information is not lost, but it is not used. This includes net pleasantness or unpleasantness and […]
All will be well
I am filming with Bernard Underdown, Gravedigger of the Year, at Deerton Natural Burial Ground. We are standing beside one of Bernard’s freshly-dug graves talking with ever-so over-egged animation about graveyard myths and superstitions. We exhaust the topic, look over to the camera, and the cameraman says, “Lovely. Perfect. Again, please.” In answer to our […]
Crems on wheels
The handsome chariot pictured above is a mobile crematorium. It is reckoned to have been developed for FEMA in case of disaster. Would it not serve just as well for scattered rural populations in Wales and Scotland? Full mobile crem patent here
Rub-a-dub-dub
From a Co-operative Funeralcare press release: Staff at The Co-operative Funeralcare in Copson Street are holding an open day between 10am to 2pm for residents to find out more about the work of a funeral director. The horse-drawn hearse and Only Fools and Horses’ fan hearse will be on display to illustrate how funerals can […]
How they do it in Zambia
In a delightful article in the Sunday Times of Zambia titled Food at Funerals in Zambia, which doesn’t actually get around to talking about Zambian funeral food at all, the writer describes current funeral customs in that country. In the countryside, the old customs are alive and well: When death occurs, news spreads very fast. […]
Taking a shirt from the Reaper
The funeral yesterday of south London underworld luminary Charlie Richardson. Among the mourners was ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser. The Richardson gang, led by Charlie and his brother Eddie, was noted, in its heyday in the sixties, for its compliance process, which included, according to the Mail, “torturing enemies at their scrap metal yard by attaching electrodes […]
Parp
This blog tends as a rule towards seemly and proper self-deprecation, but we hope you’ll forgive us if we sound a short, breathy toot on our own trumpet. There’s a great deal of interest in death these days. Funerals, to be precise. We’ve lost count of the calls we’ve had from TV production companies in […]
