The GFG Blog
2009Feb
All shades of green in the green shade
Charles
Feb
02
2 comments
Progressive movements in the world of funerals mostly march resolutely forwards into the past. The past is that place where they did things properly, the place we need to return to if we are to reclaim the care of our dead and the rituals of their passing; the place we
2009Jan
Funeralcare screwupdate
Charles
Jan
29
No Comments
I’ve blogged about Co-op Funeralcare screwups in the past. I have been critical and it has unsettled people. We all screw up sometimes; to err is human. Be a little kinder, people have said (cos remember, you screw up sometimes, too, yes?) Of course. And I hope I come out
The dead belong to their people
Charles
Jan
27
2 comments
In the United States, Thomas Lynch, sage, poet, writer and undertaker, has been denounced by industry watchdogs the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA) and the Funeral Ethics Organization (FEO). Both of these organisations exist to protect consumers, expose malpractice, shame shysters and explore ways in which funerals can be cheaper and
Habeas corpus
Charles
Jan
21
No Comments
I was emailed last night by someone who wants to visit their dead parent at the undertaker’s. The undertaker won’t make an appointment. The client thinks the undertaker is prevaricating. The undertaker tells the client that the customary time to visit a dead person is the day before the funeral.
Evansabove
Charles
Jan
20
No Comments
In December 2006, Boyd Evans, 20, a talented, stylish, popular hairdresser, died after a car crash along with his partner, Nathan. Boyd’s mother, Teresa, set about trying to get his clothes and things back: “I had wanted every last thing close to Boyd in his last moments.” The hospital
Don’t trash the ash
Charles
Jan
19
No Comments
There – just over there. See them? That conspiratorial huddle, furtive, watchful. Burglars? Satanists? What are they up to?Chances are they’re only bereaved people waiting for the coast to clear before they can scatter some cremated remains. It’s difficult to do that in public, openly. It might distress people. It’s
He died as a fool
Charles
Jan
16
No Comments
One more post about how we should speak of and to our dead people. All of us, probably, cling to the superstition that we should not speak ill of them — not too ill, anyway (just mildly critically, perhaps). To do so could have calamitous, possibly supernatural, consequences. Hush and
Can’t act. Can’t dance. Can’t sing a little
Charles
Jan
13
No Comments
A funeral is theatre. Yes? The protagonist is a dead person in a box who hogs centre stage and utters not a word of dialogue throughout. Unusual theatre as theatre goes, but theatre all the same, I think we can assert. To what genre does it belong? Tragedy, of course
Posthumous charisma
Charles
Jan
12
No Comments
Kathryn Flett wrote in this Sunday’s Observer about a funeral she went to. Her account is testimony to the value of a funeral. She says: “The send-off was standing room only, with moving speeches, singing, essential tears, equally essential laughter and a cardboard eco-coffin covered in stickers and scrawled personal