Embalmer required
Excitement is building around the GFG Funeral Industry Awards – the first ever held for the Dismal Trade. There’s been a lot of press interest and, so far, stories in Metro and the BBC website. Sky are interested in featuring the event as part of a feelgood series about nice things happening to nice people. […]
Time’s up, take yourself out
A theme that we like to explore on this blog is the way in which longevity has reconfigured the landscape of dying. The blessing of long life has its downside: protracted decline. We are likely to linger longer, much longer, than our forebears. There’s a physical cost in chronic illness and possibly, also, mental enfeeblement. […]
West Grinstead says not in our back garden
A little over a week ago we glanced at a growing furore in Sussex over a proposed new crematorium. Here’s the latest news from the front line: More than once West Grinstead residents were told to ‘be civil’ as they grasped with open arms an opportunity to voice their opinions. Patrick and Matthew Gallagher, […]
Learning the hard lesson
Professor Kathy Black peppers each startled student enrolled in her University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee class with a single question on the first day: “How old will you be when you die, and what are you going to die of?” Halfway through the course, shaking them up again, she schedules a field trip to a […]
This is how it’s supposed to be
From the website of the Federation of Funeral Cooperatives of Québec: Cooperative funeral homes have proven a highly successful model in Canada, and especially Quebec. The cooperative movement is growing, with 9,600 deaths treated by funeral cooperatives in 2011 in Canada, up more than 5 percent from 2010. The Fédération des Coopératives Funéraires du Québec (Federation […]
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 […]
