My colleague and fellow celebrant, Emma Curtis, has contributed to a short video on funeral care for trans people – especially in the current lockdown. It’s aimed at transgender people but is actually a really useful watch for anyone who
COVID White Paper and resources
There is a really useful collection of ideas and resources here – very useful for funeral celebrants and anyone involved in the world of funerals, bereavement, grief and loss. It’s a bit USA-centred but valuable none the less: COVID White
Funeral Celebrant Accord
The Accord defines the attributes and skills required of an excellent funeral celebrant and is intended to set the standards by which all celebrants offering funeral services should be measured. In summary, an excellent funeral celebrant: Is professional Cares for
Zoom funerals in the news
The BBC Radio 4 Today Programme this morning (18 April) carried an interesting feature about how funeral celebrants are starting to use Zoom and other similar online ways to perform ceremonies during the current coronavirus lockdown. Celebrant Claire Bradford explained
My first online funeral ceremony
Yesterday I conducted my first online funeral ceremony. The family of the deceased live on another continent and it wasn’t possible to hold the ceremony at a crematorium with live streaming facilities. So Co-op FuneralCare opted to hold the ceremony
Online funerals….in the age of COVID-19
See also update 10 April 2020. At the time of writing this (3rd April 2020) funerals in Scotland are still going ahead in crematoriums. Numbers are restricted to just ten people but some places, like Dundee, have the option to
Last of the Urquharts
Recently I wrote about my experience of dealing with the funeral of my father’s cousin down south. Betty lived for many years in Farnborough, latterly in a care home. Her funeral took place in Aldershot Crematorium. But she was a
To Absent Friends 1-7 November 2019
The 2019 To Absent Friends festival was launched on 31 October at the University of Dundee. As part of the festival (organized by good life, good death, good grief) I highlighted a poem and a story in memory of my
Meeting Neil Dorward, Pioneer Civil Celebrant
It’s about a year since I trained as a celebrant. So I thought it would be good to catch up with Neil and Annie who ran the course. I’ve been working professionally as a celebrant for eight months. Meanwhile, Neil
Creating a place of reverence
Just a golf club and a table tennis racket placed at the foot of a coffin. Let’s be honest, crematoriums are not attractive places. Sometimes corporate, sometimes municipal – and usually, in a clumsy way, trying to be a “chapel”.