Memorialisation option
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 […]
No going back
That modern death has failed to find its place on the continuum of ordinary life events is something we all recognise and more or less vehemently deplore. For most a funeral is a hermetically sealed, isolated (or devastated) worst-day-of-my-life episode rarely to be recalled, and only then with a shudder. We quarantine the bereaved and […]
Not so first as he thinks
From Australia’s Herald Sun: A CANCER victim yesterday became the first person to be buried upright at Australia’s only vertical cemetery. Allan Heywood lost his battle with cancer last Tuesday and was buried in the unusual, space-saving grave in the new vertical cemetery outside Camperdown in western Victoria. “It’s nice to be first at something. […]
Sarah Walton’s memorial birds and birdbaths
Sarah Walton, a potter of 35 years’ standing, whose work can be found in 13 museums in Britain, is a great favourite of the Good Funeral Guide. We admire and like her work enormously. Here, she tells us about her work: For years I’ve sold my Birdbaths as simply that. Only recently has it occurred […]
The Modern Mourner
I wonder if you spent any time over at The Modern Mourner yesterday? If you didn’t, think again and have a gander. It is the creation of Shirley Tatum, a generous spirit who signposts her readers to all manner of more or less wonderful designers. Okay, there’s nothing quite so divisive as taste, but I’m going […]
Site I like
There’s interesting work going on over in Boston, Massachusetts. Two women, Ruth Faas and Sue Cross, offer a range of services to the bereaved. They have a reading room where people can sit in comfort and find out about death and dying. They offer advice and contacts to those wanting a green or self-managed funeral. […]
Memento mori
An interesting thread here in a US forum about the custom of stopping to show respect for a hearse passing. I don’t suppose it’s a custom to be found anywhere in Britain any more. Pity. Any reminder that the bell tolls for every single one of us can’t be a bad thing. “We slowly drove, […]
Better read than dead
When Eulogy magazine came out in June there was excitement and chatter and speculation. Would it catch on? How long would it last? The lowest estimate I was aware of was a curmudgeonly six issues, volunteered by a funeral director in the west country. In the event, it seems to have underperformed more grievously. There […]
Pot ash
When ceramist Chris Smedley was asked by a client if he could make a unique commemorative piece using the ashes of the client’s father, he didn’t know what to expect. When he set about experimenting by using the ash in a glaze, he found that it produced a range of colours from green to blue […]
Cross patch
We must hope that spending cuts will result in the excision of not just waste but also the sort of local authority insensitivity which manifests as brainless heartlessness. Here’s an example from Somerset as told by the Daily Mail: Liz Maggs placed a 26-inch high wooden cross bearing a personal inscription on Rosemary Maggs’ burial […]
