Know your foe
Overheard at the Joy of Death convention: “I wish all these conventional funeral directors weren’t here, I think this event should only be for progressives.” My heart sank. We don’t need another postcode gang in Funeralworld. It’s beginning to feel like Peckham. Name-calling, in-fighting, backstabbing. Somebody ought to do something about it. And scapegoating. There are […]
One of our own
Marilyn Watts died at 4.30 in the morning on Tuesday. She had been suffering from cancer. Well known to many in the world of funerals, she was Anne Barber’s right-hand person at Civil Ceremonies and was instrumental, together with Anne and Professor Tony Walter, in creating a pioneering training programme for funeral celebrants designed to […]
When words fail
Posted by Richard Rawlinson As both mother of a son with learning disabilities and also Professor of Psychiatry of Disability at St George’s, University of London, Baroness Hollins is well qualified to be founder and editor of the Books Beyond Words series, which communicates through pictures difficult messages to people with learning disabilities, including the topics […]
Low cost is the price of low value
Barnet funeral experts are unsurprised by news that London is the most expensive place in the country to die. Emma Sargant, Director of Churchills Family Funeral Directors in East Barnet Road said: “I haven’t put my prices up since 2008.” However, Barry Broad of Brooks Funerals in Church Hill Road said there are options for […]
What constitutes corpse abuse?
We don’t have abuse of a corpse laws in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, nor Scotland, not like they do in the US. Indeed, the laws around what you can, can’t and must do with a corpse in the UK are few — so few that we’ve never managed to discover what they are. Perhaps […]
Keeping in with the in-breath
Caroline Goyder, voice coach to the stars and lesser luminaries, asked us to call to mind the person we love most. Did you notice, she asked after we’d done it, that you marked their arrival in your mind with a little in-breath? Did you? When you’re speaking in public, she says, you need to preface […]
You, the good news and Channel 5
We are pleased to pass on to you this appeal from a TV production company making a good-news documentary for Channel 5. We’ve spoken to them at length and like them. If you have created a really special funeral, or are a funeral director or a celebrant who has collaborated, or is currently collaborating, with […]
RIP Browny
Two years ago, Billy Jenkins was interviewed by Ian Brown for his ‘ultimate wasting time’ website Planet Browny. The guitarist instinctively plucked and strummed this 1936 classic from his huge repertoire…. Browny suddenly just passed away in his sleep in the early hours of Saturday the 22nd September 2012. He was 49 years old…..
Reports reach us that Britain’s first-ever charitable funeral director, Norfolk Funerals, has failed to display vital signs for some time; the premises have a Marie Celeste air; the phone goes straight to answer machine. We looked at Norfolk Funerals in May of this year. Does anyone know what’s happened?
Cool heads, warm hearts
Anticipation is building in advance of ITV’s upcoming exposé of the funeral industry. We don’t have to tell you that the industry’s pulse is beating fast in anticipation of ITV’s upcoming shocker. Pre-emptive fury and sulphurous denunciation have already broken out in the comments columns of our blog, threatening to subvert the civility and coolness […]
