Author: Charles

Memorialisation option

17 January 2011
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: memorialisation, open-air cremation

Edward John Trelawny’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author is, according to blogger Pykk:

a gossipy, wayward, autobiographical book by a moustach’d Romantic who tracked down both poets in 1822 and stayed with them for a while by the Mediterranean. He was still there when Shelley died, and alert enough to rescue the poet’s unburnt heart from his funeral pyre. The cremation, though romantic on paper, was not a romantic gesture; the body had to be carried from the shoreline where it was found to Rome for burial, and the authorities, fearing infectious disease, weren’t going to let them travel through the countryside with an intact corpse.


“In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace,” Trelawny writes, “my hand was severely burnt; and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine.” The heart was passed on to Mary Shelley, who wrapped it in a copy of her husband’s Adonaïs and deposited it in a box on her desk.

[Source]

Chirpy-chirpy tweet-tweet

16 January 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Tweets

Some recent tweets for those of you who do not do birdsong:

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

“F*** off, they’re for the funeral.” Most death jokes aren’t very funny, but this is: http://bit.ly/fpKw9J

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Dead woman stirs and stands up on the way to her funeral:http://bit.ly/eWkBqb

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Go on pestering family and friends long after you’re dead:http://bit.ly/h1zseV

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

“Wake up you disgracefull [sic] pieces of shit.” Watch this version of Taps and reflect on patriotism: http://youtu.be/Wn_iz8z2AGw

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

OMG (I finally said it), embalming tables on sale at Amazon. Wouldn’t one make a dead trendy kitchen accessory?http://amzn.to/igtvKq

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

This has the aah factor to the max. I’m a sucker for stories like this:http://bit.ly/gE2qs9

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Dignitas clients by country of origin here from a favourite blog – always reasoned, never ranty: http://bit.ly/hsT9Ik

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

British Jews ban organ donation to BMA fury: http://bit.ly/enYDgp

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

What’s the difference between Ricky Ponting and a funeral director? A funeral director doesn’t keep losing the ashes.

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

” I don’t see a funeral home; I see an events center,” says this rightheaded undertaker: http://bit.ly/hURYh2

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

What on earth have huge black horrorcars got to do with serving the bereaved? Can’t get the staff, I guess. http://bit.ly/e2Ex8K

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

‘In lieu of flowers, kindly make a donation to the charity of your choice, or feed a homeless cat.’ http://bit.ly/dKCqBr

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Colombian undertaker conducts ghost census in Medellinhttp://bit.ly/fm1i38

Trendy

16 January 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Humour

There’s a nice cartoon in the Christmas Spectator. It’s so verbal I can reproduce it in words. If you’re arty, draw it on the blank sheet above.

The Grim Reaper has come for a man, who is standing in his doorway. Reaper G responds to a query. “Scythe? Scythe? You must be joking. Scythes went out with button shoes, mate.”

Mr Reaper is carrying a strimmer.

Smoothie

14 January 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral customs, funeral pyres, funerals in other cultures

I enjoyed this blog post from an American woman living in Paraguay. Her husband is some sort of religious minister. Here’s the custom out there:

In the jungle, among the Ye’kwana tribe, burials also had to be done quickly. If the family was christian, the dying person would be allowed to remain in his hammock and home to die. If not believers, the ailing one would be taken off and left alone in the jungle to perish, away from the community, so as not to bring evil spirits into the village. Once known, or hoped, to be dead, another tribe would be paid to retrieve the body and bury it in a place unknown to the Ye’kwanas.

And here is a Paraguayan open-air cremation. This delight Richard Martin over at Scattering Ashes:

The first time I experienced this was at the invitation of the family of a Sanema woman. I walked across the log which was the foot bridge between our two villages, I climbed a muddy bank and was led to the clearing in the center of their small village where a large pyre of wood had been laid.

The elderly women were already writhing in grief, moaning and swaying to and fro. It was as if their hearts were ripping open and a wounded animal sound was gushing out from their very soul. The children roamed around confused and bewildered, the men stood stoically by, and the shaman was painted and covered by a jaguar skin making inhuman sounds and growls.

I sat on a bit of log taking in the sights and sounds around me. I felt the despair, I heard the anguish, I was chilled to the bone by the actions of the shaman as he danced and waved his rattle fiercely, seemingly, in my direction. Do not judge me, for you were not there!

Then, the body, wrapped in a tattered old hammock was slung onto the fire. A new sound emerged, a cracking, popping sounds, and a new smell filled the air. It takes a long time to burn a body. More logs needed to be added to the fire every so often. People fainted. Others went into drug induced dazes. Some wept until they had no more tears.

When the fire was allowed to extinguish itself and was left to cool, the entire tribe seemed to have been given new energy. I watched in amazement as the women ran to the cooling embers and began frantically digging with their hands and sifting through the ashes. I noticed they were placing things into a blackened cooking pot. Finally, the shaman came over and prodded the dying fire with his big toe and then nodded to the women who ran off with the pot and its contents.

I saw as they began to use a simple mortar and pestle to grind the fragments in the pot. I saw as they added this fine powder to a prepared banana drink. I saw the family members of the deceased line up.

I saw them drink the bones.

Right to die – when is it, and do you have a?

14 January 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Assisted suicide, Attitudes to death, euthanasia

Assisted dying, self-deliverance, euthanasia and allowing people to die naturally – all these are hot topics which can only get hotter. I’ve just had this email from CareNotKilling, and anti-assisted dying org:

Channel 4 are giving you the opportunity to voice your views on a series of short films about euthanasia, which are being shown on Channel 4 next week.

Next week ‘4thought.tv’ are exploring attitudes towards euthanasia, and asking whether it should be legalised in Britain.

The 90 second films will be airing after the news every evening on Channel 4 (around 7:55pm) next week.  Viewers can then share their own thoughts and feelings about euthanasia, respond to the individual films and reply to other viewer comments on their website www.4thought.tv

Channel 4 are interested in all thoughts related to the films, whether you agree with the speaker or strongly oppose what they say, and hope people will also share personal views and and experiences.

This is a great opportunity to make your views known on such an important issue.

Please watch and respond to the films online by going to: http://www.4thought.tv/

I’d not come across this Channel 4 slot before, and as I surveyed the schedule I reckoned I probably wouldn’t be able to make time to watch most of them. No worries. I can watch them online later and I can still leave a comment. I’ll be doing that for sure.

Over at the Exit blog I read this:

The religious right are already organised: the Independent Catholic News is urging people to respond online and the Church of Scotland is using its blog and facebook. The pro-choice lobby represents 80% of the population, yet when it comes to expressing our thoughts we are way behind. [Source]

Reading that after getting my email from CareNotKilling, I can see what they mean. Exit wants those who support its cause to be sure to get online.

Whichever side you’re on, you may want to do the same. Here’s the schedule:

Lesley Close – sister of an assisted suicide
Monday 17 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Lesley Close’s brother John had motor neurone disease. In 2003 Lesley accompanied him to a suicide clinic in Switzerland where she witnessed his ‘dignified and amazing’ death.

Martin Amis – luminary of the literary world
Tuesday 18 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Author Martin Amis believes that euthanasia is an evolutionary inevitability. Martin caused controversy by putting forward the idea of suicide booths on street corners and thinks that future generations will look back at how we have abandoned people to their longevity as ‘barbaric’.

Motor neurone disease makes my life richer
Thursday 20 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Michael Wenham was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He believes his life is now richer than it was before his illness and that euthanasia is a selfish act that fails to take account of the feelings of those who are left behind.

A right-to-die activist speaks out
Friday 21 January, 7.25PM on Channel 4
Dr Michael Irwin believes that it is a doctor’s duty to ease a patient’s suffering and wants to see a change in the law that would allow doctor-assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill. He has personally accompanied patients to the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland to help them end their lives.

A terminally ill doctor speaks out
Saturday 22 January, 6.50PM on Channel 4
Dr Ann McPherson has terminal cancer. Ann hopes that, when the time comes, she will be able to have the option of an assisted death in Britain.

A Sunday opponent hopes to round things off
Sunday 23 January, 7.55PM on Channel 4
Kevin Fitzpatrick believes that legalising euthanasia in Britain would be a terrible mistake and that many more disabled people would die as a result. Kevin believes that we should put our energies into improving palliative care services rather than trying to make it easier for people to hasten their deaths.

Botched embalming?

13 January 2011
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Embalming, scandals

Here’s a strange tale.

Daniel Brennan died in Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, and was looked after  Donald McLaren Ltd, est 1912. I don’t know if there was a post mortem, but we are told that Daniel’s illness was a short one.

When Daniel’s mother went to see him at the funeral home she was appalled:

“I pulled the shroud back and saw him in a body bag and covered in blood and fluid going from one shoulder to another. The smell was atrocious. His face and neck were swollen and bruised beyond recognition and I can assure you that when I left my son at the hospital, his face was in no way disfigured or marked. I was totally shocked at the state of my son’s body. It was horrific. I’ll never get the picture out of my head.” [Source]

Mrs Brennan has filed a complaint with the NAFD. It looks as if the undertaker has waived the embalming fee.

I don’t get it. Why on earth did the undertaker allow the family see Daniel looking like that? Any undertakerly insights welcome.

What to pack for hospital

13 January 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: coffins, Pauper funerals, shroud

There’s an engaging little story in January’s Funeral Service Journal describing the custom at Norwich Great Hospital, back in the medieval day, requiring those who had fallen into indigent, aged decrepitude (50+ female BBC presenters, for example) to bring with them, as their entry pass, a coffin. Not so different perhaps from today when you would be well advised to do just that were you unfortunate enough to be borne to Stafford Hospital, the sort of place that undertakers toast at Christmas parties.

But it turned out that the doddering ancients in Norwich Great Hospital thoughtlessly used their coffins as cupboards. Some of these coffins, when the time came to use them for their proper purpose, were found to be worn out. So the hospital changed the custom. Instead of a coffin, prospective entrants were required to bring £1 to pay for a shroud when their time came.

Coffins on the shopping channel

12 January 2011
Charles
11 Comments
Categories: coffins, Formality vs informality, funeral cost, funeral reformers

Newcastle undertaker Carl Marlow has, by his own accounts, been quiet for the last five years — busy building his business. For his fellow undertakers this was too good to last. Carl has never been one to take the view that the best way to achieve change is to work within the industry, and this is only one of a thousand reasons why the industry hates him. He’s a free radical and a bloody good servant to those he looks after. When it comes to offering choice he goes the extra mile: “You don’t have to have a hearse, you know. That’s two hundred quid you can put behind the bar afterwards.” I love Carl.

Now he wants to offer advice to cost-conscious, self-reliant funeral consumers and sell them coffins at affordable prices.  He says, in that disarming, conciliatory way he has: “I think funerals are a con. Too many people in an emotional frame of mind are paying too much money and there’s no need for it to be so expensive. It feels like a bit of a closed shop, and I’m trying to open it up a bit. We’re hopefully going to be putting coffins on shopping channels like QVC. We’re putting an application in and seeing if they come back to us. We’re not trying to be controversial. We’re trying to make coffins more of an everyday purchase and demystify the whole funeral process.”

Few people have done as much for the cause of death in the community as Carl. He likes to photograph his coffins, not in hushed and dignified surroundings, but in everyday contexts. He tells me he has raised eyebrows and smiles recently, carting coffins around the city, posing them against graffiti-covered walls and the like.

Having spent a happy half- hour on the phone to Carl I just had to tell you about it. The name of the new business is the Coffin Company. It launches any day. I’ll be sure to tell you when it does.

Death in the community

11 January 2011
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death

Here’s an interesting idea: the café mortel, or death café. Never heard of it? No, I hadn’t either. It’s a Swiss thing, apparently. In the words of the Independent:

The concept, although a little morbid, is straightforward enough – a dozen strangers meet to have a drink and talk about death for a couple of hours. The participants in Paris were surprised by how straightforward the discussion was.

Death is a taboo subject in France, according to Swiss sociologist and death café pioneer Bernard Crettaz. “French people find it very difficult to talk about death,” he said. He says his mission is to liberate death from what he calls “tyrannical secrecy”.

“I am never so in tune with the truth as during one of these soirées. And I have the impression that the assembled company, for a moment, and thanks to death, is born into authenticity,” he writes in his new book, Cafés Mortels: Sortir la Mort du Silence, or “bringing death out of silence”. [Source]

This has really got my mind buzzing…