Never knowingly upsold
It’s been very interesting getting out and about visiting new funeral directors who have applied to be accredited by the GFG. We spend several hours looking around, getting to know, asking questions. It’s quite different from a visit by a trade body, of course. We’re there to evaluate the consumer experience. We look out for […]
There is an alternative
Parents of the children of Newtown: Our hearts are with you. We know from experience how lost you must feel. We also know how there is a system in place where you feel you are being kept from the one thing that need above all else – to be with your child. We want you […]
Death in the community
From KentOnline: Grave concerns have been aired over a coffin maker’s presence at a late night shopping event [in Tenterden, Kent]. Andy Clarke of Wealden Coffins, who makes unique curved and painted eco-friendly coffins, said his business had as much right to be there as anyone else. “It was quite interesting,” he said. “We had […]
Merry Christmas, Mum.
Posted by Kitty I braved the crowds this morning to go shopping in Windsor. I bought my mum a Christmas present. All perfectly normal you might be thinking. Except that she died several years ago. As I walked past the Dogs Trust charity stall with its banners inviting people to sponsor a dog, I was suddenly […]
Leave your body behind you
posted by Vale Leave Your Body Behind You” Child of Eden your time is short, You can’t leave with more than you’ve brought. Love given lightly can never be owned, A thing we feel but can never hold. You leave your body behind you, When you leave this place, You leave your body behind you, […]
Witness to the funerals of the forgotten
Jim Koch has attended 180 indigent funerals in the past two years “because everybody deserves to have somebody there.”
Preparing the body
Posted by Vale I think this lovely poem manages to capture both the humanity and the brisk, professional approach a nurse would take to washing and preparing a body: Instruction Check: water, soap, a folded sheet, a shroud. Close cubicle curtains. Light’s swallowed in hospital green. Our man lies dense with gravity: an arm, his […]
Death by Joy
DEATH BY JOY is an escorted journey to the next world. Your guide is Mary, a quirky, selfless, funny, and irrepressible fifty-five-year-old who is told she will be dead in weeks without aggressive medical intervention. But Mary chooses to forgo that route. The physical has a time and place; what matters more to Mary is that essence—call it […]
Spray paint marks the spot
Story in The Times Staff at Mortonhall crematorium, Edinburgh, have since 1967 been telling families that no ashes can be retrieved from the cremation of babies who die at or around the time of birth. They have been secretly burying the ashes in a mass grave. We covered this here. In response to public outrage, […]
Holes, moles and other graveyard musings
Posted by Kitty ED’S NOTE: Kitty is a relatively new commenter on the blog. She emailed the following to us, and we are pleased to post it. Come one, come all, we say. I’m not that keen on cats and my name’s not really Kitty. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and being anonymous seems the […]
