Getting over it
For the Victorians, sex was the great taboo. Nowadays, it’s death. Every time I hear someone begin to say that I jam my fingers in my ears. I may even moan softly. Gibber a bit, even. I’m, I can’t tell you, I’m just so sick of it. Talk about cliché, god, it makes even the […]
Funeralcare screwupdate
Margaret Miller, of Dundas Road, North Berwick, passed away last Monday, aged 88, having paid her local Co-operative Funeralcare branch two-and-half years ago to be buried in the same grave plot as her parents, Andrew and Margaret Miller, in council-owned North Berwick Cemetery. However, following her death, her relatives were told by Co-op staff that […]
The truth, the half-truth and nothing of the truth
Good word, embalm. Its vowels and its consonants are gentle, emollient, reposeful. Balm. Calm. Serene. Peace, perfect peace. It definitely sounds like a nice thing to do to a dead body, yes? Undertakers hold the view that there are things we don’t need to know and they may even have a point, if what they […]
That Tom Lynch libel case
There are times when we feel acutely that the UK and the US are ‘two countries separated by a common language’. When our common language is voiced by the monstrous Republican right, the gulf looks unbridgeable. But where funerals are concerned we have much talk about and much to learn from each other. And there’s […]
Bodies to bling
I’m on holiday. I don’t want to court controversy for a couple of weeks (the weather will stop me getting hot under the collar.) But it never did any harm to be a little provocative in the interest of animated debate. So, I say, good taste will always hide behind convention because it is too […]
Sam
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said I read those lines of Philip Larkin at the funeral of a 16 year old boy who’d died of cancer. They were just right for all sorts of reasons. It was May. Sam, a good artist, had a thing for painting trees. All through […]
The mind is its own place
The Guardian ran a short piece on Saturday about those who work in the death industry. One of the themes was humour as a coping mechanism. One of the interviewees was Andrew Leverton of Leverton’s, by appointment undertaker to HRH the Queen. Asked if he found aspects of his work darkly funny he replied, “I […]
Gift or garbage?
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? […]
How to watch your brother die
How To Watch Your Brother Die For Carl Morse When the call comes, be calm. Say to your wife, “My brother is dying. I have to fly to California.” try not to be shocked that he already looks like a cadaver. Say to the young man sitting by your brother’s side, “I’m his brother.” Try […]
Light, like the sun
Here’s an interesting photograph taken by Maeve Berry of a body burning in a cremator (for US readers, a retort). It is one of a series which tracks the process from start to finish. What do you think? Hellish? Or clean, purifying and beautiful? See the rest of the series here.
