Felt feels fab

Fans of Yuli Somme, who makes the beautiful Leafcocoons, crafts other lovely stuff from her felt offcuts. Nothing goes to waste in her workshop. 

Here at the GFG-Batesville Shard, when the temperatures drop, we swear by Yuli’s fabulous foot felts — insoles for our shoes. They are brilliantly comfy and cosy — there’s nothing like them. 

If you work from home with the heat off during the day, and/or if you spend periods of time in cold crematoria and cemeteries, they don’t half stop your toes from going numb. And they make your feet feel snug as can be. 

At £6 a pair, £15 for three, they’re really good value. Buy some and you will celebrate your good fortune until you curl said (toasty) toes up. 

Yuli says:

Keep your feet snug and warm inside your shoes or boots with these cosy foot felts.  You can choose small (up to size 5), medium (up to size 8) and large (up to size 12) and you cut them to size. Please email for sizes beyond 12.   Remember to compost the off-cuts!  They are also excellent for long distance walking.  A friend of mine did the whole of the South West Coastal footpath in them, and said that nothing else worked so well at preventing blisters.  Hooray for wool!

Check out Yuli’s tea cosies, tuffets, bags and hot water bottle covers. Great for Christmas presents.

 

A new natural burial ground in the Surrey Hills

Our congratulations to Simon Ferrar, a good friend of the GFG, on the opening (at last!) of his natural burial ground at Clandon Wood. 

We don’t think it was the official, ceremonial opening, which is set for the new year.  He’s invited us to come along. We’ll be buying a new hat for that. 

Wild grasses and flowers were sown across 25 acres in June and there will be flower trails through the woods.

“As a business it should look after itself. The meadow in winter will be grazed by sheep and goats so we don’t have to run a tractor over it,” he said. “We’ve also got a burgeoning wildlife population. We have had deer, a badger, foxes. The wetland has got ducks, geese and heron. There’s nothing for them to eat yet so they don’t stay but they know where the water is.”

As well as environmental responsibility, Mr Ferrar said more people are taking emotional responsibility for their own deaths.

Mr Ferrar came up with the idea for the business when he attended the natural burial of his aunt in November 2005 and found the experience comforting. Change of use planning permission was required to put a burial ground on the site. Mr Ferrar said there were no objections and more people were concerned the land would become a huge housing development. Instead the property, which is in the green belt in the Surrey Hills, will be protected as a nature reserve. A timber and glass pavilion is to be completed next year to be used for services.

Full story here.

Clandon Wood website here

Well done, Simon!

Baby ashes scandal hits Edinburgh

From 1967 until last year, when a new manager was appointed and instituted a cleanup, Mortonhall crematorium, Edinburgh, has been telling parents that children who die antenatally or neonatally do not yield ashes when they are cremated. For an untold period the crematorium has been burying their ashes secretly in cardboard boxes in an unmarked, mass grave in a field behind the crematorium. 

You can read the story in the Scotsman here.  

Helen Henderson, 43, from Sighthill, said: “My son Nathan died when he was just one day old in August 2004. We were told by the undertaker that we would receive his ashes, but when we went to collect them a lady at the crematorium told us we had been misinformed and that there was nothing for us to collect, that ‘you don’t get any ashes from a baby’.

One grieving mother said that when she questioned the policy she was told it had been a result of “laziness and a bad attitude”.

It looks like a very bad business. Crematoria generally are well aware of the emotional needs of bereaved parents and do all in their power to retrieve some ash, however tiny the amount. The scandal at Mortonhall may well cast into doubt practices at other crematoria. Nothing could be more unfair. This is a sector which is characterised by, on the whole, high standards. 

It is likely that, back in 1967, when cremators were hotter and, in operation, more turbulent, there were no ashes after the cremation of a baby. Mortonhall’s culpability in lying to bereaved parents would seem to date from the installation of newer equipment whenever that might have been. 

Even today, cremation of a foetus younger than 24 weeks does not yield any remains. 

When a foetus miscarries or there is a neonatal death in a hospital, the hospital normally takes responsibility for funeral arrangements and will ordinarily have a contract with a funeral director to carry out these arrangements. If there was an contracted funeral director in this case, his or her failure to hold the crematorium to account is unaccountable. 

 A widespread practice is to cremate babies first thing in the morning, before the cremator has reached its full operating temperature. The cooler the burn, the easier it will be to retrieve some ash. 

 South-West Middlesex crematorium has its own baby cremator, which does not burn as hot as an adult cremator. At the Garden of England crematorium babies are cremated on a special tray. 
The Mortonhall scandal will be no less shocking and saddening to seasoned members of the funeral industry, for whom the funerals of babies and children never lose their poignancy.
 Your thoughts would be very welcome. 
The Good Funeral Guide
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