Natural burial ground of the year – the finalists
Fran Hall of the Earth-lovin’, sometimes subterranean (it is headquartered in a nuclear bunker) Natural Death Centre (NDC) tells us that, to coincide with Dying Matter Awareness Week, and to raise the profile of the great work being done by Association of Natural Burial Ground (ANBG) members, the NDC is announcing the regional winners in our […]
May we all unlearn our fear of death
There’s a good review of the Natural Death Handbook, fifth edition, in the Huffington post. Here are some extracts: The Natural Death Centre, the charity behind The Natural Death Handbook, exists to help re-open the dialogue about life’s end, offering a combination of practical advice, how-tos, go-tos, and reflections that inspire, comfort and challenge. At the heart of […]
Sacred geometry
In an as-told-to piece in today’s Sunday Times, extreme expeditioner Ed Stafford describes the hardships he underwent when he was dumped naked on a desert island. He found the loneliness and isolation especially difficult to bear. “My best technique for staying sane was something the Australian Aborigines taught me. I built a stone circle and […]
The f-word
Some people in Funeralworld get in a pickle about formaldehyde. It’s an f-word. Natural buriers won’t have it. Embalmers get cancer from it. MDF coffins are damnably full of it. It’s bad. How bad? The World Health Organisation published its own findings as long ago as 1991. I’m grateful to the Funeral Consumers Alliance for putting […]
I never met a raven I didn’t like
Dr. Berndt Heinrich, 72, emeritus biology professor at the University of Vermont, spends much of his time in a cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water, studying animals. His latest book, “Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death”, is about how animals die and how they recycle each other: It’s not so much about […]
Fuss-free simple burial in Cambridge
We send our best wishes to Tracy O’Leary as she launches her simple, fuss-free burial service, Woodland Wishes, for the people of Cambridgeshire. Her service allows for as much involvement by families as they want. We like the unstuffy text on her website. Tracy’s an old friend of the GFG. She heads up the Winterwillow […]
A new natural burial ground in the Surrey Hills
Our congratulations to Simon Ferrar, a good friend of the GFG, on the opening (at last!) of his natural burial ground at Clandon Wood. We don’t think it was the official, ceremonial opening, which is set for the new year. He’s invited us to come along. We’ll be buying a new hat for that. Wild […]
The depths they go to
In Palmerston, New Zealand, permission to inter ashes in a new natural burial ground has been put on hold. The council wants a period of consultation in order to arrive at a “a better understanding of what sort of natural burial ground people want” in the light of the assertion by a councillor that “cremation […]
All will be well
I am filming with Bernard Underdown, Gravedigger of the Year, at Deerton Natural Burial Ground. We are standing beside one of Bernard’s freshly-dug graves talking with ever-so over-egged animation about graveyard myths and superstitions. We exhaust the topic, look over to the camera, and the cameraman says, “Lovely. Perfect. Again, please.” In answer to our […]
Dig it shallow. They don’t.
Filming the Good Funeral Awards with Sharp Jack Media, the production company making the documentary for Sky, entailed going all over the country to shoot people in action and get their backstories. It was fun. Perhaps the most fun was watching the crew on ‘just another job’ become emotionally enmeshed by the loveliness of the […]
