Has the funeral procession hit the buffers?
Posted by Charles We’ve talked quite a lot on this blog recently about ritual. There have been times when a better and more accessible word might have been theatre. For what is a funeral if it is not theatre? The playscript for the drama we call a funeral, together with its delivery, is, for the […]
Daft, yes, and none the worse for that
People do like ritual, but I think that this goes deeper than our love of spectacle and colour. Ritual fulfils a human need. Monarchists, republicans, fascists and Communist tyrants have all understood its value. The Romanovs had their elaborate court protocol, and the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. Stalin had his May Day […]
Quotes of the day
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” Irvin S. Cobb “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Mark Twain “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” Mae West “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go..” […]
Fill in the blank
Friday is competition day here at the GFG, and we’re giving a cigar to the first person correctly to fill in the blank. The story is recent, and comes from a regional newspaper.We”ll give you the rest of the story as soon as we have a winner. A GRIEVING family struggling to raise burial fees […]
Abusua do funu – The family loves the corpse
Mr Mensah a retired head teacher in Kwahu-Tafo, died in 1995 in Accra, where he was receiving medical treatment. His body was deposited in a mortuary for about a month. During that period, his children organized a full facelift of the house to prepare it for a worthy funeral: the roof and other parts […]
A woodman’s funeral
Here’s an account by Charles Moore of the funeral of a neighbour: Tony Woodall was a woodman and neighbour of ours in Sussex. Unusually for a rural family in the South East, the Woodalls are Catholics (I am told there was an Irish grandmother in the case). Every Sunday at our Catholic church, Tony […]
Quote of the day
“I was deeply moved by the appreciation shown by many of my children’s peers for my address at my wife’s funeral; their expression of my bravery for doing so was extremely heart warming. I didn’t feel brave, but what was I to do? What better time to offer a celebration of her life and her […]
Quote of the day
“At the funeral, people turned up who the family didn’t even know, presumably workmates of my dad’s or people he’d played rugby with. It didn’t matter that they didn’t try to talk to us, but it mattered a lot that they’d cared enough to turn up. I can still see, in my mind’s […]
What I Want From A Funeral Director
Posted by Gloria Mundi Another opinionated passage from a sometimes-frustrated celebrant. Please remember – it’s only my opinion! So with apologies to some wonderful funeral directors I know, here goes. I am not anti-funeral directors. I think their job is frequently stressful and demanding in ways the rest of us may hardly understand. Also, some […]
She went to glory!
Some reflections here by Guardian commenter StoPeriyali on the way we do cremation in the UK: Having been to several (far too many) crematorium services, I have always felt the moment when the curtain closes and they start to hoosh you all out ready for the next one, is utterly dismal, flat, anti-climactic, unsatisfying. You have […]
