If music be the food of love, play on
Posted by Richard Rawlinson We sometimes differentiate between religious and secular music at funerals, hymns such as Abide with Me or popular hits such as Candle in the Wind. It was ever thus with music’s capacity to move, ranging, even in the Middle Ages, from sacred Gregorian Chant to itinerant troubadours with their songs about love […]
The unintended consequence of promoting longevity
Michael Wolff describes caring for his eldery, dementing mother in New York magazine. It’s a long piece and it will concentrate your mind. You’ll brood on it. Warning: once you start, you won’t be able to put it down. …what I feel most intensely when I sit by my mother’s bed is a crushing sense […]
You say coffin, I say casket
By Guy Keleny in the Independent here. “…this column does not wish to sound like a choleric pedant holding forth in about the year 1950, so we do not go on about ‘Americanisms’. “The simple truth is that there is more commerce of words eastward across the Atlantic than westward because American power, wealth and culture loom […]
Adventures in Funeralworld
1. The late night shopping experience Posted by Andy Clarke ED’S NOTE — We have featured Andy’s adventures with his innovative Curve coffin from the very beginning. Here, he describes the experience of exhibiting at a Christmas shopping event organised by his local Chamber of Commerce in Tenterden, Kent. And so it came to pass, […]
Bad death, bad memory
Pain that is not relieved in a person’s life continues after they are gone, held as a sordid memory by loved ones. Just as we retain treasured thoughts of joy, wisdom and warmth, we preserve images of pain. Unrequited suffering contaminates memory, preventing healing, healthy grieving and closure. This pain in turn flows across our […]
RIP CMJ
“Tony Greig died of a heart attack on Saturday. It was probably for him a merciful release because the late stage of any cancer is often hell on earth.” So wrote Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times on 31 December. He knew what he was writing about. He died of cancer himself on New Year’s Day. […]
Nobody knows anything
The old year is dead and buried (thank you, gentlemen). The lights are on once more in the GFG-Batesville Shard. We’re back at our desks. And we’re full of zest and zing. We hope you are, too. You have our best wishes for success, happiness in 2013 and the survival of your new year resolutions […]
Nice way to go
Congratulations to Linda Blakelock and Phil Beach, whose funeral home, Divine Departures, has, after much refurbishment, opened in Gateshead. Linda is a refreshingly new presence in Funeralworld. She brings all the freshness of an outsider. Phil, on the other hand, is a seasoned professional of 16 years’ standing. It was a bad funeral which turned […]
The Empty Chair
Posted by Quokkagirl Each Christmas I, like many other celebrants, am asked if I will ‘do a reading’ at memorial services which funeral directors provide for their past clients. Being the secular contingent of the service, it’s usually a painful and time-consuming trawl through the poetry books to find something remotely suitable and relevant. There […]
Rats show the way to Christmas cheer
In junior high, I watched my teacher drop a rat brain into alcohol, and the alcohol seemed to eat away at the brain. So alcohol kills brain cells, right? Well, not exactly. The alcohol that you drink enters your bloodstream, and doesn’t actually attack your brain directly. Of course, there are other ways for alcohol […]
