Making an impression

From Wikipedia:

Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt (1879 – February 4, 1912), was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

Believing that the lack of a suitably high test platform was partially to blame for his failures, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He was finally granted permission in early 1912, but when he arrived at the tower on February 4 he made it clear that he intended to jump himself rather than conduct an experiment with dummies. Despite attempts by his friends and spectators to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. The parachute failed to deploy and he crashed into the icy ground at the foot of the tower. Although it was clear that the fall had killed him, he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. 

From Gary Connery’s website here

Gary Connery became the first man to ever land a wingsuit without deploying a parachute on Wed 23rd May. 

Gary’s flight from the helicopter at 2,400ft to the box rig on the ground took just 40 seconds. During his dive he reached a combined speed of 102 mph ( 84 mph horizontally and 59 mph vertically ) whilst having to deal with the air turbulence and continuously adjusting his steep approach angle to stay on target.

Unofficial reports over the last few days had suggested that the professional stuntman landed anywhere from 15 mph to 80 mph. During training Gary had been able to consistently fly his wingsuit at 55 mph. However data has now been retrieved from the Flysight GPS unit that was on his neckbrace, which confirmed that he impacted the boxes at a combined speed of 69.7 mph.

At a height of 250ft, Gary levelled out but was still approaching too fast at 85mph. Once he flew over the front of the box rig, Gary was then able to ‘flare’ his wingsuit, maximising his airresistance, which brought his speed down to a ‘safer’ 70 mph when he ‘landed’.

After the landing, Gary and his wingsuit were inspected and no damage on either was found, much to the relief of his wife, Vivienne!

RIP Waldo

A special funeral was held at Joint Base Charleston. It wasn’t for an airman but instead for a member of the base’s security team.

There wasn’t a 21-gun salute but instead just three guns fired three times. Heart-felt salutes were offered by members of the base andTaps was played. Even the howl of a fellow comrade filled the air. A 10-year service career came to an end as 11-year-old Waldo, a German Shepard was laid to rest in a rainy ceremony.

Read the whole article here

These rituals are for us all to re-imagine

Extracts from the speech delivered by Ru Callender at the launch of the 5th edition of the Natural Death Handbook at the Horse Hospital, London, 4 July. 

In the west, the idea of celebrating our ancestors has weakened along with our religious beliefs. We are less sure of our place in the natural order, less sure of an order at all. Our graveyards are untended and shunned, and our sense of self becomes just as neglected. I believe that we donʼt become ancestors when we die, we become them when we are born, and it is our duty to all that came before and all that will come after to realise this. Ancestors remind us that the baton is often passed to us from out of the darkness, from out of the past, and that we need faith to grasp it, and faith to hand it on, gifting our beliefs out into nothing, trusting that other hands not yet born will pick it up. Weʼre all absent friends in waiting. We die, yet our ideas and values can be immortal.

The Natural Death Centre has always operated in a difficult area. Most people quite understandably give death and the issues around it a wide berth. What we have to say makes us unpopular with those who would rather diminish the experience for their own benefit, but as events like the Levenson inquiry, or the Dispatches exposé, or the Archbishop of Canterbury expressing his disgust at society’s imbalance show us, speaking truth to power is our moral duty, as sure as it is in the nature of power to resist our attempts to break through. We believe that no authority, religious, medical, cultural or worst of all, commercial, should be allowed to define and package and limit our experience of dying and what may come after. These rituals are for us all to re-imagine, this mysterious frontier is for every individual to cross in their own way.

 

 Read the whole speech here

Thoughts of a funeral-goer

By Lyra Mollington

On Sunday I woke up feeling out of sorts and very parched.  With this humid and unsettled weather, viruses will be having a field day.  In these situations, I find the best course of action is complete rest and lots of green tea (Yutaka Midori – ordered online from Japan).  I stayed in bed until the evening but finally the stress of not knowing what Mr M was getting up to in the kitchen took its toll and I moved downstairs. 

First thing on Monday, Daisy came round to see how I was doing.  You may remember that she’s the friend with an alarming number of urns adorning her mantelpiece.  They all contain ashes, although not necessarily of human origin.  Like me, Daisy has a passion for dogs – particularly pugs.  After Smithers died, she swore never to get another one and, so far, she has been true to her word.  Probably because there is a new man in her life – Barry.  He’s lovely and looks like an older version of Dara O’Briain.

You may also recall that she has been my partner-in-crime on a couple of occasions.   And by ‘crime’ I am referring to my hobby of attending funerals as a mystery mourner.  She came in useful as a look-out when I photographed Pat’s cosy woollen coffin with balls of wool and knitting needles woven into the flowers.

Daisy was a reluctant assistant on that occasion, but now she was eager to help out by taking Mr Chunky for a walk.  Sadly Mr M is neither use nor ornament when it comes to dog-walking.  He has a chronic sports injury.  Or arthritis as our GP calls it.

Daisy had arrived bearing a gift which she insisted I open straight away because, ‘It will cheer you up!’ She could barely contain her excitement as I began tearing off the striking Loїs Mailou Jones wrapping paper. 

It was a boxed set of three paperbacks. 

No, not the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy… 

The Natural Death Handbook – in shades of grey, teal and cerulean.  Daisy’s excitement had reached fever pitch and her words tumbled out, ‘Barry helped me to order it – we had to visit a website!  It was meant to be for your birthday but, as soon as I found out you were poorly, I thought you’d need a boost because you won’t be well enough to go to any funerals this week.’  I smiled and told her that she was the most thoughtful and kind-hearted person I knew. 

As I later reflected, only Daisy would have the aplomb to buy me the Natural Death Handbook for my 75th birthday – and then decide it would be the perfect get-well-soon present. 

Daisy left to walk the dog, having made me promise that I wouldn’t overdo it by reading too much.   Luckily, this is a trilogy to dip into, not to slavishly read from beginning to end. 

I began by reading the opening section of Chapter 7 of the Handbook: ‘Common misapprehensions and urban myths’.  I felt rather smug that I knew them all.  A gravely misinformed member of the public is quoted as saying, ‘We presumed that you had to have a hearse to move the body.’  I began to imagine trying to manoeuvre Mr M’s body into the back of my Ford Fiesta.  Yes, I would calmly explain to onlookers – it’s all perfectly legal.

I then read some of Chapter 8: ‘Family-organised and inexpensive funerals’.  I already knew that there’s no law that says you must use a funeral director.  However, like most people, I had never considered a DIY funeral for me or my family.  But the savings really are considerable.  I studied the section on ‘leakage’ with a mixture of horror and fascination.  Apparently, ‘This is something that most professionals are extremely worried about, so much so that they line nearly all coffins with plastic, which for the most part is not degradable; it is called cremfilm.’ I was strangely reassured to discover that, ‘Usually the elderly and those who have suffered long drawn-out illness will be dehydrated and leakage will not be an issue.’ Nature’s way of telling us we’re ready?

The next paragraph, ‘A suitable vehicle’ had me chuckling.   ‘This author has witnessed one family arriving at the burial ground with their mother, admittedly a short lady, in a Renault Clio.’ Mr M is quite tall but I began to reconsider my earlier misgivings.  Perhaps with the back seats down, the boot open, some sturdy twine and a following wind…

I then dipped into the volume ‘Writing on Death’ which includes an essay written by our very own Charles Cowling.  I chose to read Carla Zilbersmith first – her poignant and moving ‘Leave them laughing’.

By the time Daisy returned, I was feeling inspired.  And thirsty.  I was ready for another cup of tea.  Good old Yorkshire tea.  This elderly woman wasn’t going to be getting dehydrated any time soon.

As Carla said, ‘I’m madly in love with living.’ 

ED’S NOTE: Carla Zilbersmith, to whose essay in the Natural Death Handbook, 5th edition, Mrs Mollington alludes, died in 2010 0f ALS, which in Britain we call MND (motor neurone disease). Carla wrote a blog recording the progress of her illness. It’s one of the most extraordinarily brave, funny and life-affirming things you’ll ever read, and you can find it here. She made the video above to be played at her memorial. 

The just-out fifth edition of the Natural Death Handbook is available only from the NDC. They are cutting out distributors (people like Amazon) because they know too well that people who write books are right at the end of the food chain where earnings are concerned. They want as much money as possible to come to the charity. Good for them, we say. 

The Natural Death Handbook comes in three volumes contained in a slipcase. Production values are high: it’s a beautiful artefact in its own right. Better still, it’s the direct descendant of (not in any way a departure from) all the other editions of the Handbook, which have been so inspiring to so many. Buy a copy, love it and support the best cause in Funeralworld. Click this link and you’re halfway there – click!

The Good Funeral Guide
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