New Orleans comes to London
Posted by Vale Celebrant Kim Farley went to Abram Wilson’s memorial service a week or so ago. He was a young American Jazz Musician who died unexpectedly aged just 38. She writes: ‘There was a procession from the South Bank to St John’s in Waterloo and once inside the relative cool of the packed church, […]
Faithful grudgebearer
From the Times of India: A bull bided its time and gored an old man to death when an opportunity came a day after the latter had thrown hot water on it. The bull followed the man when he was being taken to a hospital and later reached the crematorium during his funeral in little-known […]
Dog Day
Dignity Plc said its profit for the first half rose about 11 percent on strong performance in its funeral services and crematoria businesses. The company said its underlying pretax profit rose to 27.5 million pounds ($43.16 million) for the 26 weeks ending June 29 from 24.7 million pounds a year earlier. Dignity, which operates a […]
Faithfulness and fraudulence
Dogs who remain faithful to their masters and mistresses after their deaths have plenty of aah factor, always have done. Take Hachiko the Akita (pictured above), for example. Every day he would meet his owner, Professor Ueno, off the Tokyo train. One day, Prof Ueno died at work. Unable to take it in, Hachiko padded […]
From consumption to diabetes – changing causes of death in New England
Posted by Vale Back in 1812 in Boston it was consumption that was most likely to kill you, although out of 942 recorded deaths, teething killed 15 and childbed 14, the same number that were killed by the quinsy. In 1900 tuberculosis was near the top of the list, but pneumonia or influenza had overtaken […]
Dunnarunna
The team at the GFG-Batesville Tower has decamped to the seaside, where it is presently sitting on a deckchair in a vest, eating whelks and supping strong lager, and keeping a fatherly eye on the pallid little interns as they hoot and caper in the surf. We are very grateful to the wider (still, and […]
In jest?
Lockwood woman’s colourful funeral request – including a jester to walk in front of hearse Funeral director Debbie Ingham dressed as a jester at the funeral of Margaret Harper IT WAS a fitting end to a colourful life. Lockwood grandmother Margaret Harper had only one dying wish – that no-one wore black to her funeral. […]
Quote of the day
Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday. Albert Camus, The Outsider Hat tip Richard Rawlinson
Good to go
DEAD GOOD GUIDES Autumn School 22-25 October in Frome Gilly Adams & Sue Gill The intensive 4 day course will examine the Hows and Whys of ceremony and celebration in a practical and experiential way. We will investigate how both positive and negative life events can be distilled into myth and poetry and create meaningful […]
Let’s hear it for extravagant funerals
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Since the Dispatches exposé, we’re all sounding like Jessica Mitford, the ‘red sheep’ of an aristocratic British clan who naively embraced wretched communism while settling in comfortably capitalist California, and wrote The American Way of Death (1963), which accuses the US funeral trade of exploiting vulnerable grievers. First, let me say I’m […]
