Joy of Death Convention – 7-9 September
It’s a fantastic lineup of brilliant speakers and a great clan gathering — and it’s not too late to buy a ticket! Saturday 8 September All the talks will be in the Lower Gardens Suite of the Whitehall Hotel, unless otherwise stated. 9.30am – 10.00 – Reception at the Whitehall Hotel (teas and coffees) 10.00 Barbara […]
It’s all hotting up for the funeral Oscars
Apologies from the editorial team here at the GFG-Batesville Tower for the recent blog dribble if you’re one of those who enjoy the customary daily torrent. We have been traversing the country with the TV crew who are making a half-hour documentary about the upcoming funeral Oscars ceremony in Bournemouth this Friday. It’s not too […]
So silly to take sides
A few weeks ago I bumped into a funeral director I like and admire. He was bursting with something he had just learned and needed to share: Ken West is not bonkers, official. He’d met Ken at some do or other and had revelled in a feast of reason and a flow of soul with the great […]
I wish
I wish I wish we’d had more time, To talk about the life you lead, the things you saw, your thoughts left unsaid. I wish we’d looked to our futures, yours and mine, Shared paths, different lengths of time, I should have followed where you led. I wish I knew what really made you […]
What price eternity?
Following Michael Jarvis’s piece earlier today, I’m beginning to wonder whether death-denial isn’t more prevalent among the elderly than the young. In the September Oldie magazine (strapline: ‘ticking the right boxes’) agony aunt Mavis Nicholson prints a couple of letters from readers: Dear Mavis Re your piece in the Summer issue on dying, I’m so glad I’m […]
Taboo or not taboo?
Posted by Michael Jarvis, onetime Manager of the Natural Death Centre For very many people in the UK ‘death’ is a subject left unmentioned. If you are reading this then you are part of a minority. A minority, furthermore, who would generally like to see more public openness regarding dying, death and funerals. We know the benefits: […]
J’accuse!
It was always going to be risky, this business of recommending funeral directors. We set out purposefully, hoping for the best with the best possible intentions, knowing that if you’re going to make anything in this world, you’re going to make mistakes. We’re optimists. It seemed, and still seems, to be a good thing to do, to […]
One planning problem we don’t have over here
Authorities in an eastern Polish city are trying to stop a funeral company from building a crematorium in the same neighborhood as the former German Nazi death camp of Majdanek. Full story.
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington Editor’s note: before reading Lyra’s latest thoughts, it may be helpful to read last week’s Thoughts of a funeral-goer. Whilst everyone else was making their way to the cloisters to look at the flowers, I popped back to have a chat with the young lady chapel attendant. I pretended that I had […]
Buried in a ‘Wasp Rockery’
Posted by Vale Gore Vidal died at the end of July aged 86. Although he would have wanted to be remembered as a writer and thinker, he was perhaps better known as a raconteur and wit with a vicious line in put downs. He had a long feud with writer Norman Mailer and once goaded […]
