Is this the industry’s High Noon moment?
The funeral industry is in a bad place. Public reaction to last week’s Which? report revealed few friends. It also showed it to be no good at defending itself. Things are going to get worse. Time is running out. At the GFG we’ve lost count of the number of calls we’ve taken in the last […]
Publishing event of the year!
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, […]
Open-air cremation
Buddhist monks and devotees stand around a pyre during a high priest’s cremation ceremony at the Heain-sa temple in Hapcheon, South Korea, on Jan. 6, 2012. The ceremony, called Dabisik, was held for Ji-Kwan, a former head of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. The Dabisik ceremony signifies the return of the human body to nature. The […]
Irish Traveller’s grave
Enjoy the whole photo essay here.
Quote of the day
“I get up, drink my usual four coffees, have a look at the obituaries in The Times, and if I’m not in them, I’ll get on with the day’s work.” Patrick Moore at 88
Rumble in the jungle
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 […]
Jesa
We’ve talked quite a lot recently about remembrancing and ways we can do that, either through restoration of lost customs, plagiarising others’ customs, or innovation. As we discussed ways of commemorating our antecedents, Jonathan urged us to mind, also, our descendants. Today we reproduce in their entirety, because they’re so interesting, the reflections of a […]
Quote of the day
“He’s so unpopular, if he became a funeral director people would stop dying.” The late Tony Banks of John Major. An old quote, but one well capable of being dusted off.
A Viking funeral for ashes
We sometimes have good ideas here at the GFG, but we rarely make them happen. In life there are starters and there are finishers. We have little of the latter about us. One of our better ideas was a model Viking longship for launching ashes in. We urged this on our good friend Richard Martin […]
Trading Standards ambush Milton Keynes undertakers
Here’s an interesting article from the Milton Keynes Citizen which describes a Trading Standards department that sets the pace for some of the rest: Milton Keynes Council Trading Standards has recently undertaken a project looking at the funeral directors industry to determine if businesses are compliant with consumer protection legislation. The trade within Milton Keynes […]
