Body or ashes at the funeral?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson As a blogger, I may seem as impervious to the ways of secular funerals as a civil celebrant is to the customs of Catholicism. But as a reader, I’ve mulled over ideas presented here to find they’ve struck a chord. While unprejudiced readers will already realise I value choice, whether religious or […]
Temporary temples
Posted by Rupert Callender If the sun shines in between the deluge, the next few days should see armies of combine harvesters moving across the land, particularly in Wiltshire, the UK’s breadbasket, bringing in the harvest, and bringing this year’s crop circle season to a close, too. After a slow start it has built to be […]
Mother and child
By Richard Rawlinson Whether or not we think death is the end, news of the death of the mother of an unfound victim of the Moors Murders has brought home how natural it is to seek solace in the proximity of the departed. Winnie Johnson, who died of cancer aged 77, had hoped for 50 years […]
Wow, Betty!
From the Carlisle News and Star: A tea dance at The Shepherds Inn, in Montgomery Way, Carlisle, will replace the traditional wake, after the 83-year-old’s funeral at Carlisle Crematorium. Elizabeth Ellen Brown, known as Betty to her many friends, colleagues and family members, had planned her funeral a week before she died. Her death at […]
Council changes ashes policy after bereaved family complains
From today’s Oxford Mail: A TOWN council has been forced to change its policy on interring ashes after a bereaved family took the authority to task. Christopher Harris objected to Woodstock Town Council’s rule that said people must employ the services of a funeral director to oversee the interment of a loved one’s ashes. Mr […]
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington Before Daisy met Barry, they had both been unlucky in love. Daisy’s unhappy marriage ended when her husband dropped dead of a heart attack. Barry’s wife left him and he discovered that their marriage had also been an unhappy one. With the events of recent weeks we have found out quite […]
News roundup
Funeralworld tends to be a very quiet, even dull, place — well, in Britain it is. And perhaps we should be grateful for that. If we glance over at our friends in the US we find much more goes on. In the last few days… A hearse driver died while taking a body to a […]
What a smashing funeral!
Posted by Richard Rawlinson I’m revisiting a post by Charles in January about whether a funeral can ever accommodate the venting of chaotic feelings generated by death. If so, what behaviour can be ‘officially’ appropriated: formalised wailing, hurling plates against a wall, a punch bag in the vestibule, or even a bout of fisticuffs between mourners? […]
Busybody nonsense update
A quick update on the attempt by Christopher Harris to persuade Woodstock council to abandon its requirement that ‘all interments [of ashes] … must be arranged by an approved professional firm’ We foregathered in the council chamber. Green baize-covered table, mace thereon, oil portraits of worthies from various lost ages, Union Jack, evening sunlight streaming […]
Stat of the day: cost of living
22 per cent of all health spending goes to people in their last year of life.
