Validating the unverifiable
Last year’s TV documentaries revealed shocking scenes in funeral home mortuaries which horrified undertakers as much as they did the public. But just as the documentaries did not rouse the public to descend in angry mobs on their nearest funeral home, so they failed, also, to rouse good undertakers to fight back by demonstrating convincingly […]
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, […]
The Letting Go
First published in the New York Times by SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE It had rained heavily the night before. The steep stone steps of the ghat are slick and slippery, and when my father pulls me onto the boat, the water feels more stable than the ground. The boatman rows out toward the open river, and the […]
Tahara
In his excellent book Curtains, Tom Jokinen quotes US undertaker BT Hathaway on the subject of home funerals. Hathaway reckons a home funeral suits “the 5 per cent who have money, time, resources, education and political and emotional will.” With preconditions like these, how come it ever got as high as 5 per cent? Hathaway […]
