Author: Charles

We should be careful how we leave

3 December 2012
Charles
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Categories: Uncategorised

 

 

“If we are fortunate enough to die consciously, then we should take full advantage of opportunities to create peace for all parties. Our last words and intentions matter so much to those left behind. We should be careful how we leave.”

Circling once more

3 December 2012
Charles
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Categories: funerals in other cultures

India’s Zoroastrian community is breeding vultures so that it can once more dispose of its dead atop Towers of Silence. 

Once vulture rich, with a population of around 400 million, India has seen a steep decline caused by poisoning. The vultures have been consuming painkilling meds administered to cattle. Their decline to a few thousand has compelled Zoroastrians, or Parsis, to opt for cremation instead. 

Zoroastrians believe that corpses are a pollutant which injure the elements, which is why they should not be consumed by the earth or by fire.

Now, vultures supplied by the government are to be bred in aviaries. That they will be able to eat corpses will save large sums of money in food bills. 

Before they are laid out, Parsi corpses must be certified free of diclofenac, the painkiller which also kills vultures. 

The slideshow above shows Parsi priests honouring their dead, each of whom is represented by a vase of flowers. 

More.

Cross your fingers for QSA’s Down to Earth project

2 December 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: funeral cost

Shortlisted for the Guardian Charity Award is Quaker Social Action, which works to improve the lives of people on low incomes. 

Its Down to Earth project has now been running in east London for two years. It has helped people to buy inexpensive funerals. At the same time, it has guided people in the creation of meaningful and beautiful sendoffs. The most important ingredients in any funeral are, after all, free. 

The winner will be announced on Tuesday. Some of Down to Earth’s volunteer mentors are regular readers of this blog and good friends of the GFG in addition to being outstandingly brilliant people in their own right. 

It’s always a lottery who wins awards ceremonies. We shall cross our finger and hope that the DtE team will be rewarded. Good luck!

Down to Earth- addresses both death and debt, helping people plan their own funerals and promoting access to cost effective funeral services.

Funeral poverty is highest in London where an average London funeral costs £3,803 and has risen by 60% since 2004. QSA partnered with organisations involved in end of life care, collaborating to address these issues of poverty and debt by promoting access to cost effective funerals. QSA arranged a basic funeral price with three providers for less than £1,800.

QSA have trained 20 volunteer mentors to act as community advocates, supporting grieving relatives to take control of their situation. In 2011/12 they gave practical guidance to 124 people, negotiating an average funeral price of £2,167, saving over £1,000 per funeral. QSA have hosted eight community conversations about dying, encouraging 122 people to plan ahead.

Hands on funeral for homeless man

30 November 2012
Charles
20 Comments
Categories: funeral, funeral directors, Lonely funerals, Public Health funeral

Undertaker Rupert Callender in Totnes is appealing to his fellow townspeople to turn out to help carry the coffin of a homeless man, Michael Gething, through the streets to his funeral — and then on to the burying ground at Follaton, just outside the town. 

Rupert Callender said: “The act of carrying his coffin all the way up the hill to Follaton Cemetery is quite a physical commitment, so we’re going to need the help of the townspeople. This is a simple way for people to come together and show respect and solidarity.”

Mr Gething died of hypothermia. He is the fourth homeless person to die in Totnes this year. 

The BBC report states that the purpose of the procession is to highlight homelessness. Knowing Rupert a little, I suppose that his purpose is actually to give Mr Gething a decent, respectful funeral, and to hold it where he lived. Inviting the people of Totnes to bear some of the burden would seem to be wholly appropriate. 

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No easy day for Special Force Black

30 November 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: celebrants

To Hereford for the inaugural meeting of the newly-formed Guild Of Outstanding Funeral Staff, an invitation-only body of elite funeral service professionals dedicated to restoring rigour to funerals. The Guild stands in opposition to what it identifies as the ‘beeline to blandness’ being pursued by funeral directors and celebrants in response to consumer calls for celebration-of-life funerals, which the Guild disparages as ‘nothing but grief-bypass therapy’. 

We enjoyed a short film from their training programme for funeral celebrants showing the correct way to arrive at a crematorium. It cannot be embedded for technical reasons beyond our comprehension, but you can see it here. 

Bunch of boobies?

29 November 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Marketing

“These pink blazers show the insidious creep of cause marketing. Chicken buckets, perfume and now your friendly neighborhood funeral director. It will literally follow us to the grave. How soon before we are offered pink granite headstones with a tasteful (and licensed) ribbon symbol replacing the dash between the dates of our births and deaths?

“The idea of creating breast cancer awareness at a funeral seems idiotic. I don’t see how you could POSSIBLY be more aware of anything else while attending the services of someone who died from metastatic breast cancer. For me, it would truly be the final insult.”

Source: Katherine O’Brien at ihatebreastcancer

Modern life

28 November 2012
Charles
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Categories: Uncategorised

Q: Alright – so I’ve got a dwarf that I thought was awesome who has died. I want to build a nice memorial to him, but he liked coffins (he really did. he even engraved one in the floor =P) and I’d like to stick him in one of those as well. Is that possible? Or will a dwarf who’s been memorialized be skipped over for a coffin?

In similar veins, is it possible to memorialize a dwarf after they are already in a coffin? And can a dwarf who’s had a tomb prepared while they were living be given a memorial to put inside their tomb?

A: After some messing around I’ve determined that dwarfs can get both treatments and it doesn’t matter the order in which they are done. Dwarfs who are already interred in my catacombs have their names available when engraving slabs as memorials, and dwarfs who I gave memorials to have since been buried as their remains have been found.

Additionally, Dwarfs who have memorials are still listed as options in the Engrave Memorial Slab menu, which also lists whether or not the dwarf has any existing memorials. I assume that this means I can engrave multiple memorials to the same dwarf, though I haven’t tried it.

Source

Dying to achieve a lifelike appearance

27 November 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Embalming

A lawsuit by a New Jersey mortician stricken with leukemia is casting a spotlight on embalming, a standard practice in the funeral industry.

William Moore, 38 claims his illness was caused by exposure to formaldehyde, an ingredient in embalming fluid. He is suing his workplace and several manufacturers of embalming chemicals.

Moore was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia in 2010. Federal toxicologists in 2011 listed formaldehyde as a carcinogen and said mortuary workers were among those at risk of developing various cancers.

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