Archive: 13 February 2012

Time It’s Time

13 February 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funeral music, music

Nobody knows how long
Rustling leaves unrhyme
Lullaby breeze unsung
Babel of dreams
unwinds in memory

As bad as bad becomes
It’s not a part of you
And love is only sleeping
Wrapped in neglect

Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live through the pain
Time it’s time to live
now that it’s all over
Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live through the pain
now that it’s over,
now that it’s over

Kissing a grey garden
Shadow & shade
Sunlight treads softly

As bad as bad becomes
It’s not a part of you
Contempt is ever breeding
Trapped in itself

Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live through the pain
Time it’s time to live
now that it’s all over
Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live through the pain
now that it’s over,
now that it’s over,
now that it’s over

(Instrumental)

As bad as bad becomes
It’s not a part of you
The wicked and the weeping
Ramble or run

Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live for living
Time it’s time to live
Now that it’s all over
Time it’s time to live,
Time it’s time to live for living
Time it’s time to live
Now that it’s all over

Now that it’s over,
Now that it’s over

Now that it’s over

Now that it’s over

Rest your head

Wind beneath our wings — but our art will go on

13 February 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Uncategorised

As of tomorrow, Tuesday, the good ship GFG is going to acquire a Marie Celeste ambience. Its bloggertariat, the opinionated and infuriating Charles, and his fellow scribbler, the judicious and even-handed Vale, are escaping for a few days.

There will be a deathly hush in the blog — maybe the occasional curt utterance, nothing more. 

As you may imagine, it takes a good deal of energy to keep things going day after day. What’s more, Vale and I seek no monopoly on opinionation. If you would like to have your say on this blog, please feel that it’s your space, too. We are always delighted to play host and hand the stage to others. Write down your thoughts and send them to us. If you wish to adopt a cyber-moniker, that’s fine. If you want to keep your personal views separate from your professional practice, that’s sensible. 

Normal service will be resumed DV.

 

Brass is best

13 February 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral music, music

Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a poem about them. Novelist Amy Tan’s mother was serenaded by them as she lay in state. Muckraker Jessica Mitford’s memorial procession was led by them. And more than 300 Chinese families a year hire the Green Street Mortuary Band to give their loved ones a proper and musical send-off through the streets of Chinatown.

The band traces its roots back to 1911 and the Cathay Chinese Boys Band, the first marching group in Chinatown. For more than 50 years, this amateur band performed for its community at nearly every big event: Chinese New Year’s, the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, Confucius’ Birthday, the 1939 World’s Fair and many elaborate funeral processions. [Source]

If you enjoyed the brass band in Saturday’s film of a Catholic funeral in Tonga here, you’ll love the Green Street Mortuary Band. It plays for Chinese funerals in San Francisco. The repertoire is Christian hymns accompanied by strong percussion and sporadic outbreaks of gong-smiting to frighten off evil spirits. 

What, Christian hymns at a Chinese funeral?

Yes. Years ago the Chinese heard British military bands in Hong Kong. They liked the sound. Enough said. A marvellous, mildly crazy custom was born. 

We last featured the Green Street Mortuary Band back in 2008, when our readership probably didn’t include you. 

Ain’t it brilliant?! 

Fact of the day

13 February 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Public Health funeral

Just over three-quarters of public health funerals conducted in 2010/11 were for men. 

Stat generated by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. More here. 

A case of miserable mismatch

13 February 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: alternative funerals, Formality vs informality, natural burial

Spare a thought this morning for Lynda Hannah, owner of Living Legacies, a green funeral company in New Zealand with an alternative, less than rigidly formal approach to funerals. Ms Hannah likes to empower families to play their part, do what they can, take ownership. There are funeral directors of her ilk in the UK.

Perhaps, after reading about what happened to Ms Hannah, you will feel impelled to join the chorus of condemnation. Even New Zealand’s environment minister has lent his voice. Here are some facts.

Russ Travis, 21, was out speeding with his friend David Alan Te Maari when the car crashed and Mr Travis was killed. David Alan Te Maari, the driver, is now doing 6 years and 2 months for manslaughter. 

Travis’s mother, Dee Stansbury, engaged Living Legacies to be her funeral director. Lynda Hannah brought Travis’s body home in her station wagon where it was placed on a table until the coffin arrived. Ms Hannah dissuaded the family from having the body embalmed. A lot of people wanted to see the body. The room temperature rose too high. There was leakage, which Ms Hannah had warned the family might happen. When the time came to take the body to the funeral, the station wagon’s cam belt was screechy. Mr Travis’s family were furious and refused to pay.

In the aftermath, Ms Hannah observed: “It is common for grieving people to express misguided anger towards a third party because placing it where it rightfully belongs is just too painful.” She may have a point. She also observed that the family would have been better off with a mainstream funeral director.

Here at the GFG we have enough contacts in New Zealand to have been able to establish that Lynda Hannah has ten years’ worth of satisfied customers to her name and is reckoned to be a good person if, perhaps, a tad scatty. We are also aware of good ‘alternative’ funeral directors in the UK who have attracted a similar response from families who ought to have engaged a more conservative, if more expensive, undertaker. 

We sent Lynda Hannah an email of support. She tells us that, though her ordeal has been hugely stressful, she has been very consoled by the upsurge of support support she is receiving from those who know her. 

Read the newspaper story here. Check out Lynda Hannah’s website here. 

The Good Funeral Guide
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.