Celebrant turned zoo keeper
Posted by Wendy Coulton I think my neighbours must have been impressed when they saw me clear out space in my garage this month. But the truth is I had no choice. You see, next week it will be the new home for the eye-catching and thought provoking centre piece for a free public event I […]
Die-alogue Cafe
First there was Death Café. Then Let’s Have Dinner and Talk About Death. Then Death Salon. Now there’s Die-alogue Cafe Die-alogue Café has been developed by an Australian academic, Stuart Carter. We’ve been talking to Stuart for some time. We like and respect him very much. His purpose is not to upstage other formats, but […]
Fight to the death
One of the things that’s changed is that ever so many people end up falling into the clutches of technology at the end of their lives. Something happens to them and the emergency response is to admit them to hospital – because the traditional view is that doctors are in a fight against death – […]
Bad death, bad memory
Pain that is not relieved in a person’s life continues after they are gone, held as a sordid memory by loved ones. Just as we retain treasured thoughts of joy, wisdom and warmth, we preserve images of pain. Unrequited suffering contaminates memory, preventing healing, healthy grieving and closure. This pain in turn flows across our […]
Time’s up, take yourself out
A theme that we like to explore on this blog is the way in which longevity has reconfigured the landscape of dying. The blessing of long life has its downside: protracted decline. We are likely to linger longer, much longer, than our forebears. There’s a physical cost in chronic illness and possibly, also, mental enfeeblement. […]
Allowing death to arrive naturally, as desired
The sage doctor who stood at the bedside as I held my dying grandmother said, “We seem to die one organ at a time.” I, however, have come to believe that we are too focused on the failing of the organs to rightly perceive the dying of the person. Death comes in many different ways, […]
How to Talk End-of-Life Care with a Dying Patient – Atul Gawande
Four questions a doctor needs to ask a person who is dying: 1. Do you know your prognosis? 2. What are your fears about what is to come? 3. What are your goals? What would you like to do as time runs short? 4. What tradeoffs are you willing to make? How much suffering are […]
Publishing event of the year!
The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, […]
There were six of us in the house. Seconds ago there had been seven.
Fran and her Mum on her 70th Fran Hall, a funeral industry practitioner of many years’ standing, much admired by the GFG, now works as a consultant. She is also the newly-appointed Chair of the Natural Death Centre. For years Fran successfully managed to balance detatchment and empathy in her professional life, so how did it feel when […]
Home Death by Nell Dunn
Posted by Pippa Wilcox I wish I could tell you that the real-life stories portrayed in Nell Dunn’s play Home Death are over-dramatised. But they aren’t. It seems to be a terrifyingly random lottery out there in terms of whether or not you will stumble across the sort of care package which will result […]
