Don’t let my people go
Writing in yesterday’s Times, Matthew Parris says: “missing somebody terribly, years after they’ve gone, is not some kind of psychological disorder to be “got over” or “dealt with”, but an honest response to loss. I hate all that stuff about closure and moving on.” He was prompted to write this after being asked to discuss, on the […]
Condolences
Condolences Please do not ask If I am now recovering Or if I see the light At the tunnel’s end. Nor speak about relief — or burdens lifted. And, worst of all, new starts. Please, please don’t ask If I am getting through — Have come to terms Or find my life is back […]
Diagonal Daze in St Mary’s Churchyard, Twyford
Posted by Eleanor Whitby I was wandering around a churchyard on that one sunny summer’s day, as you do, and came upon a few really lovely headstones. The first was surrounded by a burst of colour in a green area of flat memorials in the council owned section – I loved the smooth, pebble like […]
You could just get away with it
What’s bad news for undertakers is good news for the rest of us. And the good news for the rest of us is that, in the words of the Guardian, Less of us are dying than at any time since mortality data was collected. Good news for the rest of us, but rotten news for […]
Crowdsourcing a Space-Age Distribution Strategy
Posted by Tom Walkinshaw Ed’s note: Tom is an enterprising fellow who has a plan to launch ashes into Space – Space burial, he calls it. He needs your help and expertise to get it off the ground, which is why he crowdsourcing on the blog this morning at our invitation. Alba Orbital are now […]
Dying for a pee
When the inhabitants of Milla Milla, Australia,were told by the council that they couldn’t have toilets in their cemetery because they’d cost too much, they took matters into their own hands. Citizen Pat Reynolds built the toilet you see pictured above in his garage in his spare time. He’s done a proper job, mind, inbuilt […]
Double standards?
There’s a very characteristic Daily Mail story in, of all places, today’s Daily Mail. It describes outrage in the environs of Wisbech concerning the ‘floral tributes’ which adorned the funeral of a notably industrious armed robber, Thomas Curtis. One of the tributes, above, took the form of an ATM machine of the sort that Mr […]
The British way of death
“You don’t mind if I go, do you?” “No, Granny, it’s been nice having you.” Libby Purves’ daughter to her grandmother on her last day.
Introducing the Artisan coffin
Greg Holdsworth makes coffins in New Zealand. He says: We offer a wide range of real and hand-finished options made from sustainable wood, some with native timbers. Our designs are environmentally considered – if there’s a better way to do it we’re probably already doing so – and our appropriately priced caskets meet the highest […]
Compassion fatigue
I vividly remember the first day my medical school classmates and I met our cadavers in the anatomy lab. Large body bags lay on metal tables that had been bolted to the floor. I remember the sheer size of the bags best. No doubt existed in my mind that dead human bodies indeed lay within […]
