Going Green at Brookwood Cemetery
It’s been twenty five years since the inspirational Ken West MBE opened the very first natural burial ground at Carlisle cemetery, and here at GFG Towers we felt that this landmark anniversary needed to be acknowledged. Members of the Good Funeral Guild felt so too, and, under gentle pressure from Stephen Laing we have […]
Green Funeral Director of the Year
Lorna and Jo Vassie of Higher Ground Family Funerals Jo Vassie is one of the leading figures in the world of natural burial; her site near Dorchester currently holds the Natural Death Centre’s People’s Award for the Best Natural Burial Ground in the UK. With a custom built facility and a determination to be able […]
General Election blues … and greens
Posted by Richard Rawlinson With Funeralworld including many small businesses, will their owners and employees be voting in the 7 May General Election for the party they feel supports the UK’s 4.9 million small businesses the most? But what can a government actually do other than make supportive noises encouraging enterprise, and championing the role of […]
What would Doctor Who’s funeral be like?
Posted by Melissa Stewart How does the Doctor’s experience of intergalactic death care compare with our earthly experiences? What would he think of arrangements in an average high street chain? In the 1985 episode ‘Revelation of the Daleks’, loosely based on Evelyn Waugh’s ‘The Loved One’, we learn a little about the Doctor’s attitude to […]
Book Review: R.I.P. Off! By Ken West
RIP Off! is Ken West’s thinly-fictionalised account of his pioneering introduction of natural burial to Carlisle in 1993. It contrasts the enthusiastic reception his invention received in the media and among the public with the fear and loathing it stirred up in local undertakers. They didn’t understand it. They saw it as a threat to their […]
Have Cambridgeshire’s badgers moved the goalposts?
If you want to be buried in Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire, you’ll find the fees attractive but the rules, perhaps, restrictive. The parish council has placed a ban on coffins made from wicker, cardboard, bamboo or cotton. See the full document here. Why so? It has been suggested to us that badgers may be at the bottom […]
What a wonderful thing!
Hat tip Michael Jarvis From the Daily Telegraph 26 August 2013.
Dying what comes naturally
On Thursday the GFG donated an entire day to the Natural Death Centre — an act of generosity which has earned us the highest self-praise. We agreed to deliver People’s Awards winners’ certificates to those owners and managers of natural burial grounds upon whom the People had bestowed them. As our 54-seater luxury executive coach […]
It’s all good at Clandon Wood
Friday and Saturday 21 and 22 June marked the opening of Clandon Wood natural burial ground in the Surrey Hills, south of Guildford. The moving spirit behind the venture is Simon Ferrar, a man whose meticulous research has made him really quite famous in Funeralworld. There can’t be anywhere he didn’t visit, nor any person […]
An intimate and loving burial
When Alex Dudley-Smith’s mother died this month, she set about organising a fitting sendoff for her. Here is her account of what she did. The unexpected death of my mother meant we were not prepared in any way for the organisation and costs of a funeral. This is the first time I’ve been responsible for […]
