Ask not what you can do for the bereaved; ask what the bereaved can do for themselves
SCENE – A village wedding. Church bells. Assorted villagers have assembled at the lych gate waiting for a glimpse of the bride. They are joined by a TOURIST who happily happens to speak perfect English. VILLAGER: There she is! Just coming round the corner now. Ooh, it’s a Rolls! TOURIST: Who’s that walking in front […]
People’s undertaker doing fine
The Co-operative Group reports that, for the 53 weeks ended 5 January 2013, funerals revenue was up 6.4% to £348m, with operating profit up to £60m from £55m.
Is competition among celebrants killing off the fittest?
The funeral was in full swing and the celebrant was midway through that thing about life being a river that gets wider and wider when his phone went off in his trousers pocket. He furtively squeezed it into silence as he stumbled on. It may have been something by Kahlil Gibran. The phone shrilled out […]
Sacred geometry
In an as-told-to piece in today’s Sunday Times, extreme expeditioner Ed Stafford describes the hardships he underwent when he was dumped naked on a desert island. He found the loneliness and isolation especially difficult to bear. “My best technique for staying sane was something the Australian Aborigines taught me. I built a stone circle and […]
All that we miss
In his new book, Levels of Life, Julian Barnes writes of the grief he felt, and still feels, following the death of his wife, Pat Kavanagh. It centres on: “the loss of shared vocabulary, of tropes, teases, short cuts, in-jokes, sillinesses, faux rebukes, amatory footnotes — all those obscure references rich in memory but valueless if […]
Inheritance tax? LOL!
Richard Rawlinson casts a jaded, end-of-life eye over this week’s Budget. Boy George Osborne’s Budget did nothing to address the 40% IHT that clobbers so many after a death in the family. There’s nowt to be done about the ridiculous significance of seven years but here are seven tips to avoid IHT: 1 Make your will […]
Good Funeral Awards 2012
Coming to your screen soon on Sky 1. Sign up to this year’s Good Funeral Awards and enjoy a weekend of great talks, good fellowship and fantastic networking here. Oh, just in case you wondering, no one was paid in the making of this film — none of us, that is.
More than meets the eye
Yesterday’s Mail, among others, carried the pic, above, of Ronnie Biggs greeting the press at the funeral of fellow train robber Bruce Reynolds attended by the great and good of the criminal underworld. Check out the scene here. Bruce Reynolds’ son Nick is a member of the Alabama Three whose song Woke Up This Morning is the […]
Does failure feel like grief?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Not so long ago, The Independent’s left-wing young writer Johann Hari fell from being an award-winning media star when he was exposed as a self-promoting liar and cheat. The Economist was not convinced by his apology for plagiariasm. It’s now the turn of right-wing, young digital hack Milo Yiannopoulus. His mainstream profile […]
Cool idea rides again
This is a tale of freeze-dried disposal. First, a bit of backstory: The method of preparing a body for disposal by freeze-drying was invented in the US by schoolteacher Philip Backman. He patented it in 1978, and that patent has now expired. Backman’s proposed method of reducing the body to particles left a little to be desired […]
