Posted by Charles

Commentators on Mr Maiden’s letter to the Funeral Service Journal (here) deploring some coffin manufacturers’ willingness to sell their boxes direct to the public did not find in favour of Mr Maiden’s practice of burying some of his service charge in an excessively marked-up coffin. The latest score is 26-0. 

James Leedam summed it up well when he offered Mr Maiden this counsel: ‘Charge a commercial rate for the time and care you take to make sure that everything runs faultlessly on the day and for the service you take pride in – much of which is not apparent to the consumer. Don’t be embarrassed to mention all that you do – proudly justify your charges. Don’t hide costs in the inflated price of the coffin – you’ll get found out.’ 

It’s not that Mr Maiden, let’s be fair, is being slippery and sly in doing what he does, it’s that he exhibits commercial timidity. In this he is not alone. 

Kathryn observed: ‘I can see why it’s not such a sacrifice for undertakers to offer their ‘services’ for ‘free’ in the context of babies’ and children’s funerals if they’re charging £££ for a small box.’ If undertaking is a proper, respectable commercial activity, why would you not charge for babies’ funerals? 

Which focuses on the question: Can undertaking ever be a respectable commercial activity? 

And the answer is yes, of course it can. Can’t it? You offer to do for others what they can’t or don’t want to do, and you charge them for it. This is mainstream stuff. Isn’t it?

It’s not necessarily how consumers see it. They don’t silently accuse plumbers of preying on the misery of others, though plumbers certainly profit from just that. Undertakers, with some shining exceptions, have never managed to dispel the perception that what they do is exploitative of the bereaved. It is a perception which Mr Maiden and his kind only reinforce. 

But it’s not all their fault. The public’s refusal to engage with the reality of what undertakers are there for compounds the dysfunctional relationship. 

People ask, ‘Do undertakers sit by the phone hoping that someone is going to die?’ Well, of course they do — though they’d rather it wasn’t anyone they know. That’s not the same thing as causing people to die. Get real. 

People — educated people — ask what really goes on at a crematorium. You lay it on. You tell them about lids prised off, bodies crammed into cremators, and the rusty white van out the back waiting to take the coffins away for re-use. And they exclaim, spellbound by such pornography,  ’I always thought so!’ And you shout back, ‘If you always thought so, what are you doing about it?’ 

Where do we go from here? 

Posted by Vale

A young girl went missing. A body was found. A young man went to the police and said that she might be his sister. They said that was not possible; her age is wrong. That was how it happened back in 1994.

Today, police are looking for this man. The man who said that the young unidentified girl found in Pogonip Park was his sister. She still might not be his sister, but they need to find him to make sure.

The young girl was murdered in an area of the park where homeless people stayed. Now new tests have shown that she might have been younger than the police first thought…

I was an African American Male, about 50 years old, I stood about 5’8 and I wore a gold loop earring in my left ear. Now you know what they know. What they don’t know and maybe you do is my name.

Let me back up for a minute.

On July 23, 2006, a man and his son were crossing Mosquito Lake (Cortland, Ohio – Trumbull County) in the swampy area. While they were crossing they saw what they believed to be human remains. The authorities were contacted. Tests were run, they figured out my general description, the one I gave you above; but they couldn’t match me to any of their records on file, missing persons, etc. In time, the phone stopped ringing and all leads simply dried up.

The unknown victim is one of many whose stories are told on an American blog called Can You Identify Me? In its own words:

The site was started in 2007 as a blog dedicated to America’s Unidentified. It brings these individuals back to life if only for a brief moment to share some invaluable information along with their forensic reconstructions. Can You Identify Me gives the victim a first-person narrative and temporary Doe name until someone out there recognizes them. Once they are identified, they can be reunited with their families and the victims can rest in peace with a tombstone shining with their given name.

As one of their readers says ‘Not many blogs make me stop and read almost all their current posts. Topics like these bring be extreme sadness. Its a great thing you are doing. It saddens me to see how many lives go off without any closure.’

You can find the site here.

A great favourite, this, here at the GFG Batesville Tower. Older readers will experience deja vu; newer ones are in for a treat.

Click the bottom right of the screen to bring it up full size. 

The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition

A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

It’s out in May 2012!

News from Malacca, Malaysia:

The small Gujerati community here fears the final rites practice which involves talking to the dead is dying because the young are not interested.

For one man, who has provided his services to bereaved families over the past 10 years, his only hope is his son.

“I must pass it down as I am getting old. I am afraid there will be no more replacement to manage the funeral rites for the community in future,” said Nishrint Chimanlal Ravichand, 48.

Nishrint, who has performed the last rites at more than 20 funerals, said part of the procedure requires one to talk to the dead.

“With a little practice and understanding of the Hindu scriptures, I am able to do it when conducting the final rites.

“I found that talking to the deceased makes my chores, like bathing and dressing the body, easier,” he said when met at his home in Banda Kaba, a village with heritage status within Malacca city.

Nishrint, who learnt the rites from his father and grandfather, said in most cases, the bodies are stiff and this makes it difficult for him to dress the corpse in white as required for a Hindu funeral.

“I communicate with the dead, requesting the deceased to relax so I can carry out my chores without problems,” he said.

Interesting, that. Here in the UK it is by no means unusual for an undertaker to talk to a corpse while laying it out.

In Malaysia, it seems, there is a superstition that “touching a body could lead to bad luck”. You’ll find a variant of that pretty much everywhere. But they also believe that touching a dead orphan can bring you a jinx.

Why orphans, we wonder?

Natural burial √

Biodegradable coffin √

Cycle to the burial ground? Well, maybe.

You’ve done all you can to tread lightly on the earth while you’re here and – like the diver who plunges cleanly into the water – you want to make as small a splash as possible when you leave.

But what can you do if you are the problem? What if your body – full of toxins, chemicals and all the detritus of 21st century living – is going to pollute whether you like it or not?

One answer might be decompiculture. We’ve blogged on this before but a recent video from TED gives a fresh insight into the way that mushrooms trained to digest your own body could help clean up the mess you don’t want to leave behind:

The artist involved suggests that this is a journey we should all consider making – not astronauts or aeronauts but decompinauts. Her website is here. What do you think?

Judith Simpson is a PhD student in the School of Design at the University of Leeds. 

She is researching the way in which the dead body is dressed, ‘styled’ and presented and how (or even if) this relates to what people believe about life and death. 

Here is Judith’s appeal to YOU: 

I am asking a number of funerary professionals for their observations on how customers ask their loved ones to be presented and for any opinions on why these requests are made. I would be extremely grateful if you could respond to the survey on the link below. If you are able to share the survey with colleagues in the industry that would be wonderful. I would also be delighted to capture the opinions of retired funerary professionals who may have witnessed significant change over their careers. 

There is a statement attached which explains the project and how its findings will be used; this has been approved by the University’s Ethics Committee and I trust it will allay any of your concerns. 

Before you take the survey, please read the statement below, which has been approved by the University’s Ethics Committee.  

The link to the survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FHSP23F 

Informed Consent Form 

An Investigation Into Current Trends in Presenting and Viewing the Dead Body 

Purpose of the Study:

This is a study of contemporary social practices that is being conducted by Judith Simpson, a research student at the University of Leeds.  The purpose of this study is to examine what people of the early twenty first century believe to be the most appropriate way of dealing with the body between death and the point of burial or cremation.  My particular interest is in the way that the body is dressed and presented for viewing by family and friends.  I am interested in both the memories of people who have been involved in these processes and the opinions of the community in the widest sense.

What will be done:

You will complete one of a series of surveys, which will take 15-20 minutes to complete. The survey may include questions about

• your own experience of arrangements made following a death
• your opinions on historical practices or those of different cultures
• your thoughts on ‘ideal’ funerary practices
• your ideas about what specific customs might mean
• your ideas about what happens when we die

I may also ask for some demographic information (e.g. age, gender, religious belief) so that I can consider whether, for example, the insights of women are different from those of men, or whether age has an influence on ideas about death).

Benefits of this Study:

You will be contributing to knowledge about how death is currently understood in Britain, and about the arrangements that ordinary families make in times of bereavement. 

Risks or discomforts:

No risks or discomforts are anticipated from taking part in this study. If you feel uncomfortable with a question, you can skip that question. Your participation is greatly valued but is completely voluntary.

Confidentiality:

Your responses will be kept completely confidential. I will not know your IP address when you respond to an online survey.  I will only have access to your email address or other contact details should you choose to enter them in response to an invitation to participate in a follow up interview.  If you do provide contact details these will only be used by the researcher and will not be disclosed to any third party.

The survey does not ask you to provide your name, and should any comments that you make be published in research papers you will be identified by a participant number only.

How the findings will be used:

The results of the study will be used for scholarly purposes only. The results from the study will be presented in educational settings and at professional conferences, and the results might be published in a professional journal.

Contact information:

If you have concerns or questions about this study, please contact Judith Simpson at sdjms@leeds.ac.uk or one of the project supervisors, Professor Efrat Tsëelon (e.tseelon@leeds.ac.uk) or Dr Judith Tucker (j.a.tucker@leeds.ac.uk).

By beginning the survey, you acknowledge that you have read this information and agree to participate in this research, with the knowledge that you are free to withdraw your participation at any time

Joan Wytte was born in 1775 in Bodmin, Cornwall. She was sometimes called the “Fighting Fairy Woman” or the “Wytte (White) Witch”.

Joan was famed as a clairvoyant, and people would seek her services as a seer, diviner and healer. Her healing practices included the use of “clooties” (or “clouties”), strips of cloth taken from a sick person and tied to a tree or a holy well as a form of sympathetic magic, such that when the cloth rots, the disease was believed to dissipate.

Later in life, she became very ill-tempered as a result of a tooth abscess, and would shout and rail at people. She often became involved in fights where she exhibited remarkable strength and people came to believe she was possessed by the devil. She was eventually incarcerated in Bodmin Jail, not for witchcraft but for public brawling, and due to poor conditions in the jail, Joan died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 38.

Her bones were disinterred and used for séances and various pranks, then later displayed at the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle, Cornwall. It is said that, while her skeleton was on display in the museum, they started to experience disruptive poltergeists, and a witch was bought in to advise them, who said that Wytte’s spirit wished to be laid in a proper burial. She was finally laid to rest in a peaceful wooded area in Boscastle, and her gravestone reads: “Joan Wytte. Born 1775. Died 1813 in Bodmin Jail. Buried 1998. No longer abused”. [Source]

Joan was buried on 31 October. 

Thanks to Belinda Forbes for this story. Joan is the subject of a lecture this evening at Arnos Grove, details here. 

Posted by Vale

What is it with this fascination with bones and skeletons?

Faced with a pile of them and one man plasters into the walls and cornices, another creates chandeliers and shields while elsewhere anonymous skulls are given names, cleaned, polished and even appealed to for information.

Bones seem to be the acceptable face of death. Tangible reminders of course; a frisson of the macabre certainly, but once the Yorick lesson has been learned –  you might think there would be little more to add.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.

Except that there always is. Faye Dowling has published a wonderful Book of Skulls that, through images, explores our continuing fascination:

And, for the ossuary lovers, Thames and Hudson are publishing Empire of Death.

It brings together the world’s most important charnel sites, ranging from the crypts of the Capuchin monasteries in Italy and the skull-encrusted columns of the ossuary in Évora in Portugal, to the strange tomb of a 1960s wealthy Peruvian nobleman decorated with the exhumed skeletons of his Spanish ancestors.

And our old friend St Pancras is on the cover too.

You can look at it here.

Posted by Vale

That’s the headline on a Mail online story about tonight’s Channel 4 documentary about mummification.

In it a Devon taxi driver – Alan Bills – is mummified following, as closely as possible, ancient Egyptian practices. Alan died in January after suffering from lung cancer and wanted to take part in the experiment in part at least because of his grandchildren. He said

“Perhaps this would give them an insight into what their granddad was like, I don’t know.

“They’ll most probably tell somebody at school that my granddad’s a pharaoh. That’s my legacy I suppose.”

There’s a good preview on the BBC website. The show isn’t simply prurient interest or sensationalism either. Scientists are hoping to study the mummification and the effect on the decomposition of the body as part of research into alternatives to formaldehyde.

The Mail’s, always keen to find fresh sticks to beat Channel 4 and the BBC with, states:

“The broadcaster looks set to find itself at the centre of another taste row after agreeing to air the macabre documentary”.

But will it? Is death or the treatment of dead bodies such a taboo subject for broadcasters these days? Or is it only violence that justifies publicity. The Mail – with its article and photographs of Gadhafi’s corpse seems to think so.
The documentary’s on at 9.00 tonight if you are interested.