Going back for the – er, erm…?
There isn’t a name we all use for the gathering after a funeral, is there? Once upon a time there was the funeral feast, with bakemeats and all the booze you could drink—a good way of ensuring the dead person would be remembered fondly. But the feast petered out and became a bleak little tea. […]
Feeding the elderly
Here are some extracts from Nigel Slater’s essay Feeding the Elderly, taken from Eating for England. It is December 2004, and I am sitting in an old people’s home just outside Birmingham. I am holding my aunt’s hand. My aunt is ninety-nine, my eldest surviving relative on my father’s side of the family, and probably […]
Going Out Green
Rupert Callender made this observation of Dan Cruickshank’s The Art of Dying: I was surprised by how little thought Dan had apparently given the matter. I thought everyone mused endlessly about their own deaths. I don’t know that they do, Rupert. When, over in the US, Bob Butz was asked by his publisher to write […]
The Art of Dying
Is death really a taboo in our society? It’s a strong word, taboo, and I don’t know that it’s the right one. If there is a reluctance to confront death it is just as likely that it is because we are all having such fun being alive and feeling healthy. Reaper G is a spoilsport. […]
Prison hospice
Prisons are places where people are defined by the worst thing they’ve ever done. The stigma sticks for the rest of their lives. We, free people define ourselves by the best we can be. If we hate sinners it is because we are not as they. But we are. There is darkness in all of […]
Two Feet in the Grave
Eagerly awaited by many in the death industry and its attendant commentators—the croaking classes?—was Richard Wilson’s Two Feet in the Grave on BBC last night. It marks an encouraging evolution in the media’s handling of death and dying away from fixations with wackiness—way out coffins, seriously outrageous funeral songs—to a considered survey of the development, […]
Tombstoning
Here’s the latest in online memorialisation. Intriguing. I don’t know that I’ve entirely got my head around it, but that’s my age (Dr Alzheimer is the wolf at my door). This is how it works: MemorialTags was created by David, a retired soldier and family man, and someone with a keen interest in mobile technology […]
Local hero
In the matter of household shopping we look back nostalgically to the high street of yesteryear. Ah, those were the days. The butcher, the baker, the grocer. Ooh, hello, Postman Pat! In every shop a cheery greeting. And great personal service. Gone. For ever. Whatever happened to them? You bankrupted them. Yes, you. You trooped […]
Natural burial – it’s against nature!
Natural burial ticks alot of eco-boxes—but how many emo-boxes? They’re good for butterflies and vetches and voles and honeysuckle—but are they any good for living people? They may satisfy the head, but can they ever satisfy the heart? Over in the US, Thomas Friese is developing his website, Perpetua’s Garden, as a place where people […]
Sky’s the limit?
Civilisation drives a wedge between us and nature. We prefer the artificial to the elemental, an iPhone to a sunset. When we hit a problem we look to technology to get us out of a hole. Cremation did that very well – till we discovered just what awfulness comes out of those chimneys. Now we […]
