The Good Funeral Guide

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!

There’s a very good interview with Dr Hannah Rumble, death scholar and author of the shortly-to-be-published Natural Burial, co-authored with Prof Douglas Davies, over on the Seven Ponds blog. We were struck by some of her insights. These included: 

*   “What distinguishes Britain from America in the main is in the title: ‘natural’. In the UK this tends to be imagined and realized alongside landscapes that encompass the pastoral, such as farmers’ set-aside that turns to meadow, or woodlands. But in the US, I get the impression that the natural landscape incorpated into natural burial provision can encompass more of the ‘wilderness’.”

*   “‘Tradition’ is an interesting subtle difference too. In America, natural burial is aligned with the ‘traditions’ of the  American settlers in the popular imagination. In the UK, our cultural imagination tends to align natural burial with pre-Christian ‘tradition’ and practices.”

*   “When I speak of ‘aesthetic values’ in the UK and ‘romantic values’ I am referring quite a bit to the notion of the pastoral idyll that has a long history in British landscape art and Romanticism.”

*   “The sometimes cruel, sometimes sublime cycles of the seasons here in the UK provided a motif for people’s cycles of mourning and understanding of life and death. ‘Nature’, whatever that ultimately means, is a powerful cathartic tool for the people I spoke to.”

*   “I think there’s similarities in the idea of ‘utility’ of the self that prompts people to donate themselves to medical science or choose natural burial — a recycling, reusing of the body for the greater good … natural burial enables the bereaved and dying to symbolically and literally reproduce the hitherto rotting corpse into an animate, fecund ‘gift’ to ‘nature’ and society’s future generations, which ultimately challenges the  place of the dead amongst the living. The dead become ‘useful’ again rather than a problem to be solved by cemetery management.”

Read the full interview here.

Order the book here. 

When the GFG went to the London Funeral Exhibition last summer at Epping Woodland Burial Park we met Angie Whitaker, who works at a sister burial ground, Chiltern.  Her husband is buried in the woods there. Angie gave a talk to visitors about her experience of natural burial. I asked her to write it up for the blog, and here it is:

There is an element in all of us that likes to be in control. We work, we plan our birthdays, our holidays, our weddings; it all has to be perfect. Very few of us think of our death, we put it to one side, hope it will go away.

That was me.

Then the worst possible thing happens. My husband is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Both of us become very quickly aware that this part of our story will not have a happy ending.

It doesn’t.

It is December 2009, and I have the local doctor talking to me about funerals. Through the haze of unreality I hear him mention a local funeral director, and know this is not what I want. The thought of waiting in a conveyor belt at the local crematorium fills me with dread.

Fortunately I found an advert in the local directory for a Green Funeral Director, rang them, they came to see me. Please tell me I can have a funeral with a difference? I said Keith, my husband, was an artist, a woodsman. At this, a brochure was presented to me. Chiltern Woodland Burial Park. Great, let’s go see it. But I need an unusual coffin. A brochure appears. Brilliant. Cardboard coffins with pictures on.

On a bleak, wet, icy, windy January day I go to the Burial Park. We are met by Peter Taylor, given coffee, kindness and a woodland tour. A tree is chosen, the date confirmed.

The weather worsens. It snows like it never has before. The Woodland Burial Park somehow manages the whole event. A hundred and twenty-five people have battled their way through blizzards and closed roads to stand in awe at our very own Narnia. They gather together, drink wine and talk about Keith, then walk through the trees to find the turquoise-blue coffin with images of a sparrowhawk flying a Sparrowhawk aeroplane, one of Keith’s mad ‘Animals That Travel’ pictures. Keith was a graphic artist and was working on illustrations of animals that travel. He had an idea to put together a little book for Motor Neurone Disease. The pictures included a hippo in a hot air balloon, a jaguar driving a Jaguar car, a freisian cow driving a milk float, and a sparrowhawk bird flying a Sparrowhawk plane.

So many people said to me we had a great day, it was the best funeral we have ever been to. So many people did not know that there is a choice, you can have the exactly the kind of funeral that is right for you, and right for the environment.

I knew that I had got it right.

And afterwards, when we go back to visit, we are always met with kindness.

Our woodland is exactly what the brochure says: a place to celebrate life.

Martin and Julie Chatfield run one of Britain’s loveliest natural burial grounds. 

Yesterday’s funeral featured this hand-painted cardboard coffin. 

It was sourced by David Albery, of Exeter and District Funeral Services (a GFG recommended funeral director), who was looking after Catherine. The family took it home and painted it, then handed it back to David, who did the needful. On  the day of the funeral he brought Catherine to Martin and Julie’s log cabin at the burial ground, and left. 

The family arrived and decorated the cabin. Martin showed them how to carry and lower the coffin, and pointed out the grave, which was bedded with lovely bright wheat straw. He then left them to it.

A little later,  humanist celebrant Alison Orchard arrived. There was a ceremony, then the coffin was borne by members of the family to the grave. A few last words were spoken and the coffin lowered. 

Alison left. The family had a cuppa and a bite to eat back at the log cabin before departing.

So ended a funeral owned by a self-empowered family, facilitated by sensitive, hands-off professionals.

The person who painted the coffin wants it to be an inspiration to others.

So do, please, leave a comment. He’ll be reading this and deserves to know how lovely it is. 

Click the pictures to bring them up to full size. 

Find Martin and Julie’s burial ground, Crossways, here. 

Find David Albery here. 

From the Taranaki Daily News, New Zealand:

Taranaki people say they are keen on “green burials” despite the Awanui Cemetery natural burial site sitting empty eight months after opening.

The Taranaki Daily News revealed yesterday that none of the 235 plots at the Awanui Cemetery natural burial site had been sold since it opened for business in April last year.

… … … 

New Plymouth’s W Abraham Funeral Directors’ manager, Mark Baker, said a regular coffin could cost as little as $700, but the natural coffins available cost at least $1800.

Source.

James Leedam, a good friend of the Good Funeral Guide, is collecting info about what people want at funeral, how they would find out about it, and what influences their choices. As the ceo of Natural Burial Grounds, James is especially keen to find out what influences those who go green when they die. 

He’d very much like you to fill in a survey for him. It’s one of those Survey Monkey surveys where you don’t have to spend ages entering personal details, etc. It’s completely anonymous, and it won’t take you more than two minutes.

Please do it. Find it here. 

Image: http://natural-burial.typepad.com/coffins_and_urns/2009/11/arka-ecopod-recycled-paper-coffin.html

Everything you ever wanted to know about natural burial but forgot to ask:

A natural burial involves the preparation of a human body for embalming. It uses disinfectants but it avoids chemical preservatives. These preservatives or fluids might destroy the natural decomposition, composed of microbes. These living things are used to break down the body as it decomposes. The natural burial may use a shroud, casket, or a biodegradable coffin. Before putting the body inside the vault, there is a rectangular lot prepared to accommodate the size of the coffin. The depth of the grave is already measured. Why is that necessary? The measurement of the depth will allow the microbial activity. At the same time, the odor won’t be smelt outside the grave. You may reserve a grave in a cemetery or in a private land. It’s your choice. However, before deciding, you may research the advantages and disadvantages of using each type of land. Afterwards, make sure that you can find the best company to provide you a natural burial plan.

Source.

Posted by Charles

An irony of the natural burial movement is that it was begat by idealists and freethinkers and  environmentalists… and then spied and pounced on by venture vultures scenting carrion. When you do the math you can easily see why — and begin to fear that there are going to be tears before bedtime.

Here’s an example.

Take 15.7 acres of land in Haslemere, Surrey. Get planning permission to turn them into a natural burial ground. Put them up for sale for around £3 million. 

This is actually happening.

The buyer sells each plot at what you’d pay for a plot in local authority cemetery in leafy Haslemere, namely £2,000. That parcel of land is set to earn…

£28 million. 

More here. 

Bringing Death to Life – 27^th August 2011

All Saints Arts and Youth Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes.

Free Entry

ARKA Original Funerals of Brighton opened its new office in Lansdown Place Lewes, in July this year, with the ceremonies and celebrant company, Light on Life. 

ARKA Original Funerals and Light on Life are recognised leading experts in natural death and green funerals and between them have many years of experience and insight. 

Bringing Death to Life is being held at All Saints Arts and Youth Centre, Friars Walk on the 27^th August. 

Their joint event – is a stimulating and vibrant look at death and dying, how it is an integral part of our community and how we all can manage the process with dignity for the families and friends involved and respect to our environment at the same time. 

ARKA Original Funeralsand Light on Life want to open up the mysterious world of funerals and give people the opportunity to get information, advice and, from this day in particular, take a look at how we can celebrate someone’s life through the empowerment of the friends and family who may be left behind. 

On the day we will be running workshops on: 

Please email info@arkafunerals.co.uk to book and guarantee your place on any the above workshops. For further details please visit the ARKA Original Funerals website, www.arkafunerals.co.uk 

Alternatively turn up as early as you can on the day to book your place and meet experts from the green funeral world who will be on hand to give information and advice. 

We will have demonstrations from a leading willow coffin manufacturer and we will also have lovely food and refreshments to buy. 

Free Entry and Doors are open from 12 noon until 6pm

Bill Jordan is on a  quest to have (when the time comes) his corpse laid out on the surface where it will be able to give most back to the ecosystem. He wants “to know I’ll be going back into the air, the soil, the rain, the mist, the snow–back to the ecstasy I feel while walking–these experiences are so comforting that I almost look forward to being laid out on the festive table of a Sierra Nevada meadow, or the large rocks in the Australian Alice, or the sagebrush scrub of the Great Basin.”

Bill has featured before on this blog. If you missed his extended rationale, read this and this.

Here is Bill’s latest update of his pursuit of his goal. He has been working with down-t0-earth idealist and natural burier Cynthia Beal. Bill says:

Cynthia and I are agreed to proceed, in principle as well as spirit, on the assumption that it’s always later than you think. The strategy includes several plans, based on practical reality, and one of these involves planting on Bernd Heinrich’s property in Maine. Bernd is an old friend–I met him while in graduate school at UC Berkeley in the late ’60s and early 70s–and we have discussed permanent parking on his mountain. He is, by the way, publishing a new book on decomposition in nature and I am mentioned in it–also mentioned in Summer World. Slowly, insidiously, we are infiltrating the modern mind.

Bill also sent me more photos of his duck, Jacqui. He says: “Note the red caruncle around her eye in the last picture–let your mind flip and suddenly you see it as a small, red creature–some primitive, amphibious ancestor, pointing backwards”.