Corpse in the parlour
In the Kokomo Perspective, Don Hamilton writes: Back in the early 1940s, they had funerals in the homes. A relative would die, and their casket would be placed in the corner of some room in the house, so that visitors could come and pay their respects. Most of the visiting family members would spend the […]
Singing them out
Here’s a lovely story from the Isle of Anglesey, reported by the BBC. A local funeral celebrant, Tim Clark, has founded a choir to sing at funerals. He has named it Threnody. Tim says: “Many [secular] funerals are at crematoria, where there is not a tradition of choral singing. We aim to change that, and […]
Dethe where is thy sting, where Grave thy victory cry Molesworth
Posted by Vale Ronald Searle is no more. We marked the day here at the GFG Batesville tower with a blog post and a brief period of mourning by dressing like Alaster Sim playing the headmistress of St Trinian’s. Enuff said. But, in the pages of the Economist, the grate Molesworth himself has remembered […]
Deathfest Southbank
With a Festival Day Pass for Saturday 28 January or Sunday 29 January, muse upon mortality, tackle the taboo and join us for a weekend of discussion, workshops and talks. Ask questions, share your stories or simply be enlightened about the end. Including: – Assisted dying: The Human Rights Debate with Jon Snow – The Long […]
Bicycle hearse for sale
Paul Sinclair, he who begat Motorcycle Funerals, has a bicycle hearse for sale. It’s made to his own design, and it’s been thoroughly tested. Says Paul, “We put a coffin on it and 30 stones of sandbags then rode it with two, me being pillion. It went fine.” Paul warns: “I won’t sell it to someone […]
Absentee of the day
In death she left her body to science, thereby avoiding a funeral from which she would have wanted, her family knew from experience, to exclude so many enemies. From Janey Buchan’s obituary, here.
In shivering memory
This day, one hundred years ago, Captain Scott and his team of plucky amateurs arrived at the South Pole – and saw that “the worst had happened”. Yes, the dashed pros, the cads, had beaten them to it by over a month. Amundsen got there on 14 December. The memory lingers, and with it a […]
Soul medicine
We’ve not spent enough time on this blog talking about the value of psychoactive and psychedelic drugs in the treatment of the dying. Let’s start putting that right. We’re talking cannabis, here, and also LSD, MDMA (ecstacy, on the street), and psilocybin, the fun ingredient in magic mushrooms. If you find yourself deeply sceptical and utterly disinclined, here […]
Be a dog funeral celebrant
Dog Funeral Celebrant as well as memorials tend to be fairly typical nowadays, as numerous individuals deal with their own domestic pets because members of the family, as well as because surrogate kids. Dog Funerals could be kept in exactly the same style because human being Funerals, such as the customer’s reminiscences from the dog, photo taking […]
Two weeks ago I told a man that he was dying…
Here’s the beginning of a brilliant post by an American doctor, Jordan Grumet, who blogs over at In My Humble Opinion. Do follow the link at the end and read the rest. Two weeks ago I told a man that he was dying. We sat together in the mid afternoon haze. Puffs of snow meandered […]
