The f-word
Some people in Funeralworld get in a pickle about formaldehyde. It’s an f-word. Natural buriers won’t have it. Embalmers get cancer from it. MDF coffins are damnably full of it. It’s bad. How bad? The World Health Organisation published its own findings as long ago as 1991. I’m grateful to the Funeral Consumers Alliance for putting […]
Go gentle
Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country … Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never […]
A gothic tale of a dazzling light in a drab world
Posted by Richard Rawlinson (at his very best — Ed) It was while writing about Medieval music here that my thoughts turned mechancholic about the loss of Isabella Blow, the fashionista who committed suicide a few years ago. A uniquely English eccentric, Issie loved the Middle Ages, and both her wedding and funeral were held with Gothic pomp […]
Seeing is disbelieving
An Indiana funeral director said he was fired for refusing to use random body parts to create fake cadavers for three his funeral home lost. David Eckert said his employer, Alpha Funeral Service of Indianapolis, routinely loaned cadavers to Indiana University’s School of Medicine, Courthouse News Service reported. When three cadavers went missing, Eckert said […]
Keeping tabs on Dad
There’s a very nice piece in the New York Times about a brother and sister who devised an ingenious way of keeping tabs on their ageing and determinedly independent father. Here are some extracts to whet your appetite: My brother and I created a shared Google calendar — an online calendar in which we could both make […]
Let’s hear it for the good guys
“Nice guys”, they say, “don’t win ball games.” Well, maybe they don’t – but they certainly make nice coffins. Here’re two of them. First, come with me to Scotland to the tiny fishing village of Johnshaven (above) and meet Robert Lawrence and his wife, Charlotte. In his workshop Robert, artist and lover of wood, makes […]
The Gas Poker
The Gas Poker by Thom Gunn (An account of his mother’s suicide when he was in his teens, written in the third person.) Forty-eight years ago— Can it be forty-eight Since then?—they forced the door Which she had barricaded With a full bureau’s weight Lest anyone find, as they did, What she had blocked it for. […]
Good question, Poppy
In 2010/11, 40,000 women attended NCT antenatal classes. This is on top of regular meetings with midwives and GPs. Mumsnet gets 50 million page views per month. We clearly want information badly. So why do we prepare ourselves for birth and death so differently? Read the whole of Poppy Mardall’s article in the Huffington Post […]
Feeding time
Yorkshire-headquartered Yew Holdings has been acquired by rival funeral services provider Dignity in a deal priced at £58.3m. Dignity has also announced plans for a share placing to raise £24.2m before expenses. The acquisition comprises 40 funeral locations and two crematoria located in the north of England. Dignity added there were “significant opportunities” to improve […]
There’s snow stopping him
From the Birmingham Mail: Motorbike-mad Horace Craythorne was given a high-octane send-off – when he made his last journey in a sidecar hearse. The old soldier – who died earlier this month aged 97 – beat the snow by travelling to a Midland crematorium in fitting style yesterday, his coffin draped in a Union flag. […]
