The ideal death show

Article in today’s Spectator by Clarissa Tan(There is no paywall around this article, so I hope the Speccie won’t mind us reproducing it all.)

I am in a yurt, talking about death. Everyone is seated in a circle, and I am the next-to-last person to share. The last of the summer sun is shining through the entrance. At one end is a display coffin of biodegradable willow — there’s also tea and coffee, and coffin-shaped biscuits with skeleton-shaped icing.

‘I am a reporter,’ I say. ‘I’ve come to cover this event. But don’t worry, I won’t report what you share in this yurt. Also, I have cancer. I have been in treatment for one year, but now the treatment is over. I take one day at a time.’

There is silence, then hugs. I thought I would cry, but I don’t. Instead, I feel acceptance and a strange kernel of satisfaction. For the rest of my time here I am Death Girl, shrouded in drama.

The yurt is on the grounds of a beachfront hotel in Bournemouth. I am attending the Good Funeral Awards, meant to honour the best in the business. Running up to the awards dinner there are a series of activities such as the ‘death cafe’ I am participating in, where people mingle to mull mortality. Death cafes are now taking place all over the world, as Mark Mason has written in this magazine, but the weekend also will feature a number of speakers on subjects such as the use of LSD in the care of the terminally ill, memorial tattoos and what to wear for your final journey. An award will go to the embalmer of the year — a miniature coffin in the style of an Oscar.

I arrived expecting a weekend of black comedy. This is what I find, but there’s something else — a sincerity and straightforwardness that takes me by surprise. Many of the attendees are involved in the death business, as coffin makers and corpse tailors and funeral celebrants, because they feel our society does not pay enough attention to death. We avoid it, plaster over it, try to pretty it up and Botox it out of existence.

Even old age is taboo. As we all live longer and longer, so our actors and actresses, politicians and pop stars get younger every decade.

‘Why do we do this, when death is something that happens to all of us?’ lamented one woman.

Why, indeed? I’d done it too, until I discovered my illness. Then I thought of little else — about the fragility of life, the permanence of death. Friends sent me amulets, prayers, ginseng, ‘positive energy’. My heart opened, and something flooded in. What if death were not disconnection, but connection? What if we were just going to meet our Maker? Then death would not be severance, but reunion. It is not at all a fashionable point of view, but I believe in God — and a good one, at that. The belief fills me with healing, wonderful hope. It is the hope not that I will live. It is the hope that I am loved.

The awards dinner is actually a happy affair. The great and good of the funeral industry quaff champagne and exchange jokes. Opposite me at my table is a woman who runs a funeral company. She is flanked by her husband, who also manages the business, and her brother, who is up for gravedigger of the year. The actress Pam St Clement, whose EastEnders character Pat Butcher died on-screen in January last year, is here to present the prizes. Everyone claps and cheers. In the midst of death, we are in life.

It’s a fine line between the two. Looking at the people around me, women in evening dress and men in black tie, it strikes me that death can be a glamorous affair. I wonder if, working with funerals and the bereaved, one can also be too attached to the idea of death, taking refuge in it. That’s another thing I’ve realised, too. Twelve months of ill health, hospitals, medicines — while they were tough, they also gave me an identity. I am a journalist and death gave me a story.

I realise that although I am frightened of dying, there’s a also a tiny part of me that’s always been scared of living. The finality of death is hard. The uncertainties of life can be harder.

After the dinner, the winners and losers of the Good Funeral Awards get up to dance. I peek into the ballroom bespeckled with lights. What will they play? ‘Born to Die’? ‘Forever Young’? Perhaps ‘I Will Survive’? Or ‘Stayin’ Alive’? I decide I’ll take a cab back to my bed-and-breakfast and watch Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow on telly. Perhaps this is not the time for me to dance with death.

Pebbles in the press

Gazette&HeraldSept12s

 

 

Davina Kemble’s pebble coffin has been featured in the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald. She’ll be on BBC Wiltshire next Thursday afternoon. If you click on the cutting it will leap up to a larger, more readable size. 

The crying need for more funeral venues

Guest post by Wendy Coulton  of Dragonfly Funerals

It struck me today when queuing at a takeout coffee kiosk how many choices I am prompted to make when I place my order – what type of coffee, how many shots, what size cup, any extras (chocolate sprinkles or cinnamon on top) and whether I have a loyalty points card? And before my thoughts were broken by the familiar coughing and spluttering of the milk being heated, I wondered how many coffee outlets there were in my home city of Plymouth? I tallied up 20 with ease.

Sadly, though, the bereaved in a city population of over 240,000 residents are currently not spoilt for choice if they want a non-religious venue for the funeral service/ceremony of their nearest and dearest. If you don’t want a church, one of the two local authority run crematorium chapels in Plymouth tends to be the assumed ‘only’ alternative.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with the staff at the crematoria. They are fantastic and do the best they can within the constraints of the facilities and the volume of funerals taking place. And some families will have no issue with the crematorium chapel’s fixed layout and absent ambience.

There is a hidden ‘gem’ though which I would love to see being more widely promoted without reliance on Funeral Directors to tell their clients. It’s a beautiful  Victorian Gothic chapel – where I can, as a qualified Civil Funeral Celebrant, conduct ceremonies because it is deconsecrated – in Ford Park Cemetery. The cemetery is run by a charitable trust and with significant grant and donations funding they transformed the disused chapel from a machinery store into a very special community space.

Following funeral ceremonies there mourners told me they felt the chapel lifted their spirits and how much they appreciated not feeling rushed, and having the freedom to ‘personalise’ the space within the chapel and freely move and participate in the ceremony.

I have heard by word of mouth that a funeral occasionally is held at a local rugby ground for longstanding club supporters but as far as I know that’s about it when it comes to current funeral venues in Plymouth.

When I did an online search for Plymouth wedding venues, thirty options immediately appeared from manor houses and country golf clubs to a fort and even a zoo! It begs the question why can’t these venues also host funerals?

Is it a decision these businesses make based on the misplaced assumption that having a coffin with the body of a dead person in it on the premises may offend customers or upset their staff? Do they think funerals are not commercially viable? Often weddings and funerals are cited as the only time family members scattered to the four winds come together and they value the opportunity to socialise after a funeral – sharing memories and catching up. Hospitality services could be part of the ‘offer’ package for funerals to make it financially worthwhile for the venues to host.

We are a consumer society – we know our rights and we know how to complain don’t we? The bereaved seem to ‘settle for’ whatever funeral service venue they are advised is available in their area. There should be at least 30 options popping up on an online search for Plymouth funeral venues.

One day…

The Good Funeral Guide
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