A price worth paying for good value
How many shops do you know where the goods aren’t priced on the grounds that if you need to know the cost you can’t afford it? Outside a posh, celeb-prowled zone or two in London, my guess would be none. Would you use a shop that didn’t display price tickets? Or a restaurant that didn’t […]
You’ve been ad
How good to see three local family undertakers in Devon club together to advertise themselves. Really nice, professional piece of work — proper job as they say down there. (Click it to make it bigger.) (First one of you wins a cigar)
What to say when someone’s history?
The job of the life-centred funeral is clear enough. It serves two purposes: first, to meditate on the now-complete life lived; second, to spell out all that has not been lost. While the dead person will no longer be an active presence in the mourners’ lives, their example will continue to be influential, and memories […]
Can marriage between a creative and a control freak be a happy one?
The relationship between architects and project managers in the construction industry is always icky. The architect is the creative visionary; the project manager is the person tasked with co-ordinating suppliers and service providers so as to bring the vision in on time, in budget, to the client’s satisfaction. Architects tend to want more than they […]
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…
An average 68 per cent of Canadians favour the legalisation of assisted suicide, but the Court of Appeal in British Columbia has just rejected it. Read more here. The arguments for and against assisted dying, assisted suicide, dying with dignity, call it want you will, will be with us for some time to come, but […]
Kingfisher Funerals get behind home funeralists
Kingfisher Funerals of St Neots have bought a Flexmort body-cooling system for people who want to care for their dead at home. Andrew Hickson, who founded the business in 2010, tells us: “We have seen a marked increase in requests from the family of someone who has died, who do not want the person removed […]
Corpse roads – then and now
Back in the middle ages, established churches hung on to their right to bury the dead when new churches were built nearby to serve a growing population. Burial rights brought in revenue. This meant that parishioners of churches without a right to bury their dead were compelled to take them to a church which did […]
A C of E funeral
To Salisbury and the funeral of the mother of two friends. The venue is the cathedral, no less. We get there in good time, but not good enough: the place is almost full and we forage for a seat at the back. Who’s the celeb who died, you ask. No one you’ve heard of. Andrea […]
Should women be allowed to go to funerals?
I don’t suppose there can be many ‘indigenous’ funerals held these days which prohibit the presence of women. There may be one or two redoubts in Presbyterian Scotland. Bucking the trend in the wider community, though, many Muslims prohibit their presence. Why ban women from funerals? To spare their feelings, mostly. Or put it another […]
Fifty years since JFK’s assassination
Posted by Richard Rawlinson We’re approaching the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, at 12.30pm on Friday, 22 November 1963. In the wake of a media deluge, here’s a video of the state funeral on Monday, 25 November. Preparations were speedy. The president’s body was brought back to Washington and, after 24 hours […]
