2026May
Annihilating all that’s made / To a green thought in a green shade
Fran Hall
May
13
No Comments
First published 13/10/2008 Image of Usk Castle Chase from Leedam Natural Burials I had to go to Wales to see the burial ground at Usk Castle Chase because it’s just been garlanded with the title of Green Burial Ground of the Year 2008. Wales doesn’t know it’s Wales, of course: that’s simply the name its present tenants
Missing the point
Fran Hall
May
06
No Comments
First published 09/10/2008 “We don’t want the wedding to be a happy, jolly occasion. No, we want it to be a lament; an elegy for everything lost. Marriage marks a beginning, yes, but also an ending, a parting from family, a distancing from friends, the loss of personal sovereignty, the
2026Apr
‘Variety’s the spice of death’ by Charles Cowling
Fran Hall
Apr
29
No Comments
First published 07/10/2008 Secular celebrants congratulate themselves on delivering better funerals than ordained ministers. They think they do because people tell them they do. They risk complacency. A secular ceremony is often reckoned better than a religious one not so much for what it does as for what it doesn’t.
‘Killing time’ by Charles Cowling
Fran Hall
Apr
22
No Comments
First published 06/10/2008 Photo by Iván Díaz on Unsplash Wherever dead people go they are freed from time. It’s our apprehension of this that adds to our sense of their elsewhereness and convinces us that they will not be coming back. It adds to the mystery, too. It is difficult to conceive of
‘You say it best when you…..’ by Charles Cowling
Fran Hall
Apr
15
No Comments
First published 23/09/2008 Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash At yesterday’s funeral I invited people in the audience to have their say after they’d listened to tributes from the family. I tried to make it easy. I gave them time to think about it in advance, acknowledged that speaking in public is hard,
‘Death Porn’ by Charles Cowling
Fran Hall
Apr
08
No Comments
First published 02/09/2008 Here’s an interesting and not unconfusing series of pics from today’s Guardian. Entitled ‘Behind the Last Closed Door’, the photos are by Laura Peters and are on show at the Lighthouse Gallery, Wolverhampton, from 3-18 September. ‘What,’ asks the Guardian, ‘happens behind the scenes at crematorium [sic]? A new exhibition
‘Being There’ by Charles Cowling
Fran Hall
Apr
01
No Comments
(First published 11/08/2008) Life teems with ticklish antitheses. In the midst of life we are in death: in the midst of death we are in life. It’s a summer’s day which feels like late November. Rain is spitting; the leaves on the chestnut trees are browning. The funeral is over
Ten years in the blink of an eye
Fran Hall
Apr
01
No Comments
Image by Isabella Fischer via Unsplash Somehow, it has been ten whole years today since I took the reins at the GFG! And what reins they are, bequeathed to me by our incredible founder Charles Cowling. After babysitting me for a few years, and gradually easing himself out of the
2026Mar
Burial Law Reform
Fran Hall
Mar
18
No Comments
(Image courtesy of Jim Thring via Unsplash) The Law Society has today published the first of three reports under its burial, cremation andnew funerary methods project. You can find the report here (all 392 pages) along with a summary document – https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/burial-and-cremation/ – it covers the laws involved with burial
2025Oct
Talking about direct cremation
Fran Hall
Oct
02
2 comments
Yesterday, we had the great honour of being invited to take part in the closing debate at the ICCM Learning Conference in Warwickshire. The title of the discussion was ‘Affordable Choice, But at What Cost?’ and the subject was the rise of direct cremation. Our task was to talk about
