Dignitas
Interesting series of photos from the Guardian taking you inside the Dignitas operation. See them here.
Real time and ritual time
I was interviewed the other day by Margaret Holloway of Hull University. She and her team are researching spirituality in modern funerals. Updates on their research were posted on their website, but they’ve mysteriously vanished. She raised what seems to her to be the curious practice of conducting the committal or farewell in the present […]
Home funeral stories
Some good and inspiring home funeral stories here.
Perpetua’s Garden – a great Idea
The really interesting thing about logic is what it makes people do–where it takes them. It starts with a Question which begets an Idea which resolves itself into a Certainty, fortifies itself with Conviction, draws up a Strategy, then acts with Singlemindedness. This is a human thing, it’s not the way the world works, nor […]
Post mortem photos
Is this custom going to make a comeback? Why not? More here.
Pugnacious priests and supine celebrants
A little while ago a United Reformed Church minister wrote this: I’ve had a bit of a narrow escape : I’m doing a funeral today and went to see the family three days ago. As I was leaving the house, something they said suggested that they had requested that “the curtain should not be closed”. […]
Burial depth – my last word
For some time now I have been nagging natural burialists about the depth at which they inter their bodies. My concern has been that, beneath the topsoil, a body is not going to enjoy the ecologically positive rot envisaged for it. I have had this response from Emma Restall Orr at Sun Rising. I think […]
Bookcase coffin
I know I’ve blogged about this before. I’m doing so again because William Warren, the ingenious designer of these handsome shelves which can be reassembled as a coffin is now offering free instructions so that you can make your own. Simply email him your height and build and you’ll be able to construct something bespoke […]
Priceless
There’s an interesting letter in this month’s Funeral Service Times from a funeral director, Brian Howard. Actually, it’s more of a suicide note, but we’ll come to that. He’s fed up with people ordering funerals they can’t pay for, or for which their dead people did not make any provision. “In our experience,” he says, […]
Open air cremation – it’s for all of us
Following my post of yesterday, I have had the following response from Andrew Singh Bogan: Dear Charles, Thank you for your email; I read the blog with interest and have taken time out of my hectic schedule to submit this response. The EHRC website (http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/) advises that their “…job is to promote equality and human […]
