Each year in May, the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care organizes a week of events designed to raise awareness of end of life issues, funerals etc. The partnership runs this via its initiative Good Life Good Death Good Grief. This
Coffin Club Caledonia
Talking about death is difficult. It’s the one thing we can all be sure will happen to us but we act much of the time as if we were immortal. In previous centuries death was quite literally much closer to
Commissioning a funerary urn
It’s almost four years since my father died in October 2017. At the time we weren’t able to have a funeral because dad left his body to medical science. We did hold a memorial service instead, just a couple of
The Natural Death Centre
I have just joined the Natural Death Centre – it’s a great source of information on all sorts of issues around natural burial grounds, green funerals and so on. I think it’s very important to recognize just how medicalized death
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
A COVID-19 update
Family “visits”So now of course I have stopped all family visits in person. This is very sad but I am still able to contact families by telephone, skype, facetime or zoom. FuneralsThe situation is changing rapidly, but as I write
HMS Unicorn
Another historic venue with very personal significance to me Almost exactly two years ago, I conducted a memorial service for my father. This was before I started working professionally as a celebrant – before I even trained. But dad had
Myres Castle
First in an occasional series of profiles of interesting alternative venues for funerals and memorials in the Dundee and Fife areas I first encountered Myres Castle in January 2019 when I attended a writers’ retreat there. It felt like an