Real E Fun

I Couldn't Even Think Of A Title

2009-01-05T07:34:00.003Z

I sat down yesterday to write this blog post without an idea in my head. I looked at the blank screen for a while, but it didn't help (funny, that). Then I had a trawl back through some old posts to see if anything would inspire me. (Is it really, really sad to read your own writing in hope of inspiration?)

While I was doing that, I noticed that the last time I had a blogbreak was in summer 2006. And then I did have an idea.

Yes, dear readers, I'm going to take a break. I'm really low on ideas for this blog, and I need to concentrate on other kinds of writing for a while. Charles is producing good, entertaining posts about funerals. Any of the Novel Racers will offer you posts about writing. And for quality rants, from the idiotic through the eccentric to the laudable, I commend you to the online Guardian's Comment Is Free section.

I do intend to continue reading and (mostly) commenting on the blogs in my sidebar. I don't know when I'll start writing blog posts again. Maybe next week, next month or next year. Maybe never. Maybe tomorrow. Who knows? Perhaps I'll reinvent myself and appear in a different corner of the web under a whole new identity. If you want me for anything in the meantime, feel free to email. And look on the bright side - that's one less blog you need to check on for a while!

Post Of The Week

2008-12-29T07:16:00.003Z

New Year Resolutions. What are they good for? Evidently not taking up exercise, stopping smoking or losing weight. I decided, some years ago, that I would only make New Year Resolutions that would enhance my life, not the kind that involve me beating myself with a big stick that may be metaphorical but nevertheless hurts. Since then I've made two. The first was to stop buying black clothes (my predilection for black was nothing to do with funerals and everything to do with having no fashion sense) and the second was to take proper holidays. Both improved my life no end.

I'm making another one this year: to be more consistently supportive of Post Of The Week. In case you haven't come across POTW, it's a small informal competition, run by bloggers for bloggers, with the aim of bringing good new writing to a wider audience. The rules are simple: anyone can nominate a post for inclusion; the editorial team produce a shortlist each weekend from that week's nominations; a handful of bloggers read the shortlisted posts and rank their top five in order; those scores are then used by the editorial team to identify that week's winner.

Some people are put off by the competitive aspect of POTW. However, for me, the competitive part isn't the point. You could say that's easy for me to say as I'm a Hall Of Famer, i.e. I've been shortlisted at least five times and won at least once. But I've always enjoyed contributing to POTW because it broadens my blog horizons in a very easy way. Some terrific blogs have come to light through this, and don't we all write to be read? Isn't that the point?

For me, anything that separates the cyberdiamonds from the cyberdross is worth promoting. If you haven't met POTW before, and would like to get some idea of the standard of posts it includes, let me commend to you the winners and the shortlists. I return to this page regularly when I'm in search of a good read. If you already do the same, then you might like to consider getting a little more involved. This could simply mean nominating a post from time to time, or if you want to do more than that, you could help with the judging, either as a one-off 'guest judge' or as a regular judge or team member. But there's no obligation, and if you do nothing else, I would recommend that you bookmark the page and keep an eye on it for guaranteed high quality blogging.

So are you making any New Year Resolutions this year? If so, feel free to share in the comments box. That's another reason I like POTW, and blogging, and doing funerals - I'm insatiably nosy!

Memorial Scammers?

2008-12-22T07:00:00.001Z

I read a very interesting article in yesterday's Observer by Victoria Coren, daughter of the well-known writer, humorist and broadcaster Alan Coren who died in October 2007. The article evoked a combination of amusement and horror.

In brief: Victoria was planning a memorial service for her father when she was alerted to the existence of one Terence Jolley. This man seems to make a habit of attending memorial services for famous people, particularly those with arts connections.

I've never been to a memorial service for anyone famous, but it seems that entrance is by ticket. Numbered tickets are distributed by the family, partly to ensure that relatives and friends are seated near the front, with fans and well-wishers further back. It may be that for some memorial services, entrance is restricted to those who knew the deceased in person, but as far as Victoria was concerned, "Those who had written honestly to say that they didn't know my father personally, but were life-long admirers, were very welcome."

An email from 'Terence and Caroline Jolley' claimed that they had worked with Alan Coren at the BBC. Googling Terence Jolley reveals that he is an ex-magistrate; has been involved with a transport fraud; may at some time have run a printing company in Barnsley; does voluntary work; has a particular interest in mental health issues; has himself suffered a nervous breakdown and been diagnosed as suffering from a personality disorder; and has never been married (although of course Caroline could be his sister, aunt, granny or whatever).

Victoria did some detective work and discovered that the postal address given by Terence and Caroline Jolley was a guesthouse in Ilford. She had also been asked to send tickets to this address by a Keith Davidson. Terence Jolley's home address is in Barnsley, and she had been asked to send tickets to that address by a Lady Noreen Wray and a Mr Gary Holmes. There were emails from other people whose names she didn't recognise and whose postal addresses, when she checked, didn't appear in any official records. She contacted one man she'd never heard of, Marc Cain, and discovered that his name had been 'borrowed' for a ticket application - and so had his dog Tessa's.

So Victoria, being both clever and cross, decided to lay a trap for the Jolley gang. She invented a fictional arts patron, killed him off, and advertised a non-existent memorial service all over the Internet, giving the email address of the fictional arts patron's fictional grief-stricken boyfriend. Within hours she had had a request for tickets from 'The Hon Terence Jolley and Terence Jolley (Snr)', and from Lady Noreen Wray, Gary Holmes and several others who had previously applied to attend Alan Coren's memorial service. They all claimed to have known, or known of, the fictional arts patron, and - most sickeningly - to have admired his work.

Gotcha! But due to a combination of complicated circumstances, Victoria decided not to prevent the whole gang from attending her father's memorial service. She ensured that Terence Jolley himself was unable to attend, and let the others come to the service and tuck into the food at the reception while she "avoided them, got drunk and toasted my father".

Terence Jolley seems to style himself 'The Hon' fairly regularly. This would mean he was, or was related to, a peer of the realm, or that he was a Privy Councillor. There is no evidence on the Internet to support this, and in fact a Wikipedia entry from 2008 for 'The Honourable Terence Jolley' was swiftly deleted for 'not indicating a real person'. But he's been doing this for a while: for example, The Times reported him attending a memorial service as The Hon Terence Jolley in 2005. They have him down at another one in early 2008, this time as Mr Terence Jolley, whose name is next to Ms Noreen Wray - whose title also seems to be astonishingly flexible. She appears in The Times at a royalty-studded memorial service in 2007, this time as Mrs Noreen Wray and without Mr/The Hon Jolley. UK Google has four entries for Noreen Wray, three connected with memorial services and one from October 2007 when she petitioned the Government to give Terence Jolley an OBE or MBE. The petition received six signatures, including those of 'Darren and Becky Fisher' - which is interesting as Victoria had an application for tickets to her father's memorial service from 'Darren and Heidi Fisher'. I wonder who these people are.

The Observer, quite rightly, gave Terence Jolley a chance to answer Victoria's allegations. Here is what he said:

I applied at the time [to attend Alan Coren's memorial service] when the announcement went in the Telegraph or one of the papers. Myself and several of my colleagues applied - it was easier to apply on their behalf than do it individually.
I'd met him in Leeds on a couple of occasions. There was nothing untoward about me applying. It was not done in a way to deride somebody but the complete opposite. I've made similar applications in the past but sometimes I haven't got the time to go to them. They are people I have met or I have connection with from doing research; maybe I will have met them on only one or two occasions. I applied on behalf of Marc Cain and assumed he might have a lady friend he wanted to bring along so it was the easiest thing to do [apply on behalf of Cain's dog]. I couldn't think whether he had a particular lady friend; you never know.
I applied [to attend a memorial for the fictional arts patron] and it's possible I applied on behalf of some friends, too. I couldn't find him in Who's Who but I'd read he had been recently knighted. It was interesting to know what people did and what they have achieved.

But this still leaves me with several questions. Why the shifting titles? And why the outright lies? It may be that some of the people who apply for tickets to memorial services are not fans of the person who has died, but just want a nice day out, a chance to don a posh outfit and scoff some free grub. As Jolley says, it can be interesting to know about people's lives, especially those who are in some way exceptional. And I know, from hanging around crematorium entrances, that people attend all sorts of funerals for all sorts of reasons, and free food is often high on the list. It may seem like a small offence to blag a few butties from some famous people. But famous people love their families just as much, and feel the pain of bereavement every bit as keenly, as any other people. And in my book, blagging anything off the recently bereaved leaves a very nasty smell.

The trouble with uncovering this gang is that they might get better at what they do, change their names and identifying details, and carry on. So it's just as well there's a photo of Mr Jolley on the Internet, then, isn't it?

Three Top Tips For Speaking At Funerals

2008-12-15T11:50:00.003Z

So, due to popular demand, here they are.

1. Sit at the aisle end of a row. This means you can get up to the front without having to squeeze past several people hissing 'excuse me... sorry... excuse me... oops, sorry...' and feeling horribly embarrassed before you even start speaking.

2. Don't look at anyone you know. This is really, really important. Don't stare down at your notes, either, if you can avoid it. Find a group of people you don't know and look at them, or look at the back wall, or a pillar, or the centre of the aisle, or the organ - whatever you can see that is neutral. The reason for this is that if you catch sight of someone you know, and they're having a bad moment, it can be your undoing.

3. Remember that the congregation are mourners just like you, not a massive panel of judges. They are not going to suddenly produce cardboard lollipops with scores on. It doesn't matter if you get a bit choked mid-speech and need a moment to compose yourself. Take a couple of deep breaths; wipe your eyes or blow your nose if you need to. Nobody will be surprised that you're feeling emotional. Everyone will be impressed with your courage and determination, and they will all be willing you on.

So those are my top tips, but there are a few other things that can also help. First, write down what you want to say, appoint someone as back-up to take over if you can't manage it on the day, and give them a copy of your speech. This is useful insurance in case you fall ill, or your car breaks down on the way to the funeral, or there is some other reason why you are unable to speak as planned. Nobody knows quite how they will feel at a funeral, and occasionally people simply can't speak. I usually act as back-up for family members who want to speak at my funerals, and they nearly always don't need me to do anything more than be ready to step in. It seems that just knowing someone is willing and able to take over makes the process easier to manage.

Second, have some tissues in your pocket or up your sleeve. It's grim if you do need to blow your nose and don't have any to hand.

Third, be prepared for lots of attention and compliments after the service. Many people will want to tell you they think you're really brave, did very well, should be proud of yourself, etc etc etc. I find this difficult because I'm rather British and tend to want to brush away compliments and be left alone, but I realise that's not helpful or kind to the compliment-givers, so I try for gracious acceptance and a quick change of subject.

Fourth and last, plan a way to relax after the service or - if there is one - the reception. Speaking at a funeral is a big deal and may take more out of you than you expect. Think of something that will work for you: a quiet evening at home with your family; a long hot bath; a glass of good wine; a massage; it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it will help you unwind. And make sure you take full advantage of the opportunity, because you will have earned it.

Peter #2

2008-12-08T07:53:00.006Z

I spoke to Lynne again the night before her mother's funeral. Sure enough, Peter was still determined to speak. But Lynne sounded much happier about it.

'He's practised it over and over and over,' she told me. 'He's run through it with me about two hundred times, and he's word-perfect, but he keeps asking to practise it again. I don't mind though. I think this is how he's dealing with his nerves.'

'What's he going to say?' I asked. 'Am I likely to duplicate anything?'

'I don't think so,' Lynne said. 'He's really talking about his experience of Dad, and you're going to do the kind of biography thing, aren't you? So I think the two will go together well. And I've timed him; it's around four minutes.'

'Okay. I can work with that.'

I was glad Lynne seemed more confident, but I was still anxious. Call me a control freak, but I don't like anything unpredictable in my funerals; I like them planned, timed, rehearsed, deliberate. So I dealt with my own nerves by arriving even earlier than usual at the crematorium, and then sat in the car for forty minutes, thinking of all the jobs I could have been doing at home and wondering why I'm such an eejit.

Time rolled slowly along and eventually I was standing outside the chapel doors watching the hearse draw up. The funeral director was my dear friend Paul who got out of the hearse, turned his back to the mourners and gave me a surreptitious wink and smile as he shook my hand.

'Let's get the family out,' he said. 'My chaps will see to the coffin.'

We headed for the limousine behind the hearse. Lynne stepped out first and greeted us both with hugs. Peter followed her out and stood still, his hands at his sides, his face expressionless.

'Hello, Peter,' I said. 'How are you doing?'

'I'm OK,' he rumbled. 'I have a job to do. And then I will be upset.'

'When you've finished your job.'

'Yes.'

He seemed monumentally calm. I wanted to tell him I thought his dad would be really proud of him, but I didn't know how secure his control was, and I didn't want to jeopardise his plans. So I decided to stick to the nuts and bolts.

'In a minute you will walk in with Lynne behind the coffin.' I pointed to where the bearers were placing the coffin carefully on the bier. 'I will go in front to lead the way, and Paul will show you where to go. When everyone has sat down, I will say a few things to welcome people and let them get settled. Then I'll call your name, and then you can come to the front and stand by me and say your piece. OK?'

'Lynne, will you help me remember?'

Lynne was trembling, on the verge of tears, but she fought them back and managed a crumpled smile for him. 'Yes, Peter, I'll help you.' She tucked her hand through his arm and leant her head on his shoulder.

'OK,' Paul said, 'let's go.'

The start of the ceremony went smoothly and I was glad to be underway. When I called Peter, he lumbered up to the front, his face expressionless as usual, and stood at the lectern.

'My dad taught me that everybody is different. Lynne is my sister so we are alike in some ways and also different. Lynne can't say anything today because she is too upset. I can say about my dad for both of us. I will be upset after.'

His words came slow and ponderous, like drumbeats.

'My dad loved me and Lynne and my mum best of all. He was good at loving us because he was happy when we were there. Sometimes when we were little and we were naughty he would get cross but that was OK. It's what a dad has to do and it helped us learn not to be naughty.

My dad always helped me all his life, and I always helped him too. Especially when he was old I could help him because I am strong. He liked me to help him and he would always say "thank you, Peter, you are such a help to me."

My dad enjoyed his life and that is a good thing. He was a happy man. Lynne and me would not have liked anybody else to be our dad.'

Peter walked calmly back down to the front pew and took his seat by Lynne. Then he began to cry. He cried like a child, open-mouthed and noisy. He cried through the rest of the service: waves of great gasping sobs, hiccups, elephantine nose-blowing, the works. It was contagious, too; I don't think there was a dry eye in the place apart from mine. I carried on with the service, although I don't think people could hear much of what I was saying, or of the music we played at the committal. But it didn't matter. Peter's weeping felt like an extension of his tribute, a perfect expression of his feelings of sadness at the loss of his beloved dad.

Peter

2008-12-01T08:41:00.002Z

Lynne was a small, neat, softly-spoken woman in her early 50s. She sat on the sofa next to her brother Peter, a lumpy man with thick glasses. Lynne fidgeted like an unsettled cat while Peter was very still, his hands between his knees, as if somebody had switched him off.

Peter had always lived at home. Their mother had died several years earlier, and since her death, Peter and his father had cared for each other. Lynne lived nearby with her teenage son Daniel. She had explained to me on the phone that Peter would be moving to a residential centre, that he'd been prepared for this over the last few years, and that he was happy about the move. It sounded sensible, but I felt sorry for him, losing his familiar home as well as his beloved father.

Lynne was doing all the talking. I tried to address questions to them both, to encourage Peter to speak if he wanted to. I wasn't sure how much he was taking in. I didn't know whether being still and quiet was Peter's usual social style or a grief response.

I'd got most of the information I needed, and it seemed like a good time to ask one of my standard questions. 'Would either of you like to speak at the funeral? Or anyone else, Daniel maybe, or one of your father's friends?'

Lynne shook her head. 'I'd like to, but I couldn't. And I know Daniel would say the same.'

A seismic rumble came from Peter as he cleared his throat. 'I want to speak for Dad.'

'Are you sure?' Lynne turned to him, her face drawn in concern. 'Don't you think you'll get upset?'

'I am upset. Dad's died.' He spoke slowly, as if each word was heavy to lift from his body. 'I want to speak. I knew Dad best. This lady didn't know Dad.'

'Peter, you're right,' I said. 'It is best, at funerals, if someone who knew the person who has died can say something. Will you be able to write down what you want to say, so I can put it in the script?'

He shook his head. 'I can't do writing very well. I will think about what to say, and practise with Lynne.'

Lynne was worried. 'Peter, it's a hard thing to do,' she said.

'It will be like a job. I will do this for Dad. Like at work.'

'Peter works in the Scope shop three mornings a week,' Lynne told me.

'With Madge and Carol,' Peter said. 'Madge says I mustn't get angry with a customer, even if the customer is rude to me. Madge says I can wait to be angry until the customers have all left the shop. Then I can shout, or swear if I want to.'

'So do you think you can do it like that at the funeral?' I asked. 'Can you wait to be upset until after you have spoken to everyone?'

'Yes. I can wait. And I can speak.'

Lynne didn't look entirely convinced, and I was nervous too. Time is limited at the crematorium, so it's always nerve-racking when family members want to speak, as I'm never sure they will stick to the length of time available. I always ask people to write down what they want to say, for several reasons but partly so I can time it, but this clearly wasn't going to work with Peter. Also I didn't know whether to give him my Three Top Tips for speaking at funerals. I wasn't sure he'd need them, and I didn't want to overload him with information. In the end, I settled for suggesting that he sit on the end of a row to make it easy to come up to the front. I told him I would arrange for his speech to be near the beginning of the funeral, and left it at that.

Lynne telephoned me that evening.

'Zinnia, I've had another chat with Peter about this idea of his that he wants to speak at the funeral. To be honest, I was hoping to talk him out of it, but he really seems to want to speak. And when he gets an idea, it can be kind of hard to dislodge.'

'I think if he wants to speak he should speak,' I said. 'I'm a bit worried about the timing, though. He said he was going to work out what to say and practise with you. Can you time him, and let me know how long it's likely to be?'

'Of course. And then you can tell me if it's too long.'

'Five minutes should be fine, but if he goes much longer than that, we'll need to think about cutting down some of the music or leaving out one of the poems.'

'So we've got some flexibility if we need it.'

'Definitely. We don't need to make final decisions until the night before.'

I heard her whoosh an out-breath of relief. 'Okay,' she said. 'And he might still change his mind.'

But I didn't think he would.

To be continued...

These Things Happen

2008-11-24T06:26:00.004Z

I was a poorly sick Zinnia last week. Nothing life-threatening, but enough to make a flowerhead droop. You know when you're shivering and sweating, aching all over, can't face food, head thumping like a drum? When all you can do is whinge about how terrible you feel? Yes, dear readers: I had man flu.

So I wasn't working. But it was still an odd week. I've mentioned before how funerals seem to come in bunches of the same type: earlier this year it was all bikers, one year there was a run on suicides, and quite often of course it's several elderly people in a row who have died of more-or-less natural causes.

My first call came from Gill at Pemberton's.

'Hi Zin, how are you?'

'Bit poorly, I'm afraid, Gill. I'm not working this week.'

'Oh, I am sorry. Nothing serious, I hope?'

'No, just this flu-type bug that's going around. What am I missing?'

'We've got a baby in.'

That is one sentence I hate to hear. Funeral directors don't like it either. Baby or child funerals are the worst we ever have to do. In some ways this is an indication of how lucky we are as a society, because infant mortality is so rare that it's a huge shock and trauma when it happens. I notice the difference with my older clients. When there is a surviving spouse, I will ask of their elderly husband or wife: 'was he/she an only child, or were there brothers and sisters?'. The reply will often come, very matter-of-factly: 'oh no, he was one of nine, and six lived.' I am sure people grieved hard for their children then, as they do now, but it must have felt different (not better - just different) when it was part of the natural order of things; when there was no clear expectation that a baby should live, grow up, become an adult, as of right. Which is what we have now here in the UK.

So Gill's statement would have given me chills if I didn't have them already. She told me it was a cot death of a three-month-old baby from a family with three other children who live on one of the worst estates around here.

'There's no money,' she said.

'I wouldn't have charged anyway. I don't, for babies.'

'We don't either. At least, only to cover our costs.'

Gill and I discussed other local celebrants and decided we thought Janet would be best, so Gill went off to give her a call. I put my head back on the pillow and thought about the family. I've visited several houses on that estate over the years, so I could almost picture them. I wished I could help them, but it was no use wishing.

A couple of hours later, Paul rang from Newell's. I was dozing, so my voice croaked as I answered the phone.

'Hi, Zin, you don't sound too good,' he said. 'Got the lurgy?'

'I have. I'm sorry. Did you want me for something?'

'You won't be sorry when I tell you.'

'Go on.'

'Do you remember Briony Payton?'

The name rang a bell, but I couldn't place her at first, and then it clicked.

'It was her daughter I met with, wasn't it? Donna.'

I remembered her because all through our meeting she was breastfeeding her four-month-old son. She was trying not to upset him by crying, although at several points tears slid silently down her face, and she wiped them away before they could fall on him. Most of the time he fed quietly, but at one point he lost his hold on her nipple and snuffled and snorted so that both she and I collapsed into giggles. That made him flail his arms crossly, which made us laugh even more. Tears and laughter; the usual thing. I'd liked her very much.

'Paul, is she OK? Her son - '

'She's well, and her son is fine. But she's just lost twins. They only lived for a few hours after birth.'

My stomach felt cold as stone. 'That's terrible.'

'Nothing good about it, is there? Donna said the nurses at the hospital were wonderful. But they had no idea there were problems. Multiple disabilities, apparently.'

'Poor, poor Donna. I wish I could help her.'

'She asked for you, but it doesn't sound like you're much use to anyone right now. Don't worry, I'll ring round the others.'

'Maybe not Janet, though, Paul.'

'Oh, really? I was thinking of her.'

'She's got a baby one already today, from Gill at Pemberton's.'

'Oh. OK. I see what you mean. Two in one week, that might be a bit heavy. Perhaps I'll try Dave then.'

'I'm really sorry, Paul.'

'Don't be. You can't help it. And anyway, it's not exactly an experience to cherish.'

'Give my love to Donna, won't you? And do explain for me.'

'I thought I'd tell her you couldn't be bothered because you've got a hot date.' He chuckled at my gasp of horror. 'You are feeling low if I've got you with that one. Of course I'll explain. And she'll understand. These things happen. Look after yourself, Zin.'

'You too.'

I tucked myself back under the duvet, shivering from more than just my illness. I could definitely picture Donna. Again, I so wished I could help her. I wanted to be out there, doing what I'm good at, making life just a tiny bit easier for families going through a particularly difficult kind of bereavement, accompanying them for a few steps of that long, long journey. I had wanted to say 'yes' to Gill, and to Paul, as I usually do, not make their lives more complicated when they've already got difficult baby deaths to deal with. I felt bad for adding pressure to the lives of my celebrant colleagues who would need to take those funerals on. Then again, they might do a better job than me, as they're both parents themselves. Then again again, maybe it would have been better if I could have done those funerals, because I'm not a parent.

So I lay in bed riding the mental/emotional Waltzer and feeling thoroughly sick. I'm sure that was partly because I was feeling under the weather, but partly also because my work can be enormously demanding at times, even when I'm not actually doing the damn job.

Anniversary Suggestions

2008-11-17T07:10:00.002Z

The anniversary reaction is powerful and not fully understood. I have an experience of my own that is testament to this. A few years ago I was with my parents, visiting my mother's family in the city where I lived briefly as a child. My father and I went out in the car to pick up a relative. We drove down a wide boulevard-style road lined with a host of golden daffodils. A grassy central reservation held trees in springtime green, and I became filled with terror and an unbearable sadness. I couldn't think of anything that might be triggering such a response. I told my father how I was feeling. He was quiet for a moment, then he said

'We're on the road to the hospital. And it was this time of year.'

He didn't need to say more. When I was six years old, my mother had an emergency appendectomy, then developed a blood clot on the lung and very nearly died. My younger sister and I were taken to the hospital to say goodbye to her. I have no conscious memory of the event, yet evidently, somewhere inside me, there is a clear associative memory, which is still active although my mother is alive and well.

This type of memory is known as the 'anniversary reaction'. On the first anniversary of a traumatic event or someone's death, lots of people remember. After that, fewer and fewer do, and we may even forget ourselves. So any of us may feel very down at a particular time of year without realising it's associated with a long-ago bereavement. And if we do realise, it can be difficult to deal with. Those horrible critical inner voices say things like 'your father died 17 years ago, you should be over it by now' or 'So-and-so only lost her husband last year and she was having a good time at the party last week, so what right have you to feel miserable about your friend who died in 2002?'

The trouble is, grief is unpredictable and it doesn't have a cut-off date. The worst part of the grieving - the bit where it dominates all waking thought and much sleeping thought too - that will end, and we reach a time where we can function normally without the person we have lost. But we'll never fully understand that loss, so in some ways we can never completely accept it. And there will be times where it hits us unexpectedly. This can be due to an anniversary or it can be triggered by other sensory stimuli such as a piece of music, the taste of a particular food or drink, sunlight on skin - anything, in fact.

So when that happens, what can we do? The first and most useful thing is to recognise a grief response. This feels different to different people. For me it's a void behind my solar plexus that makes me crave carb-heavy food. For others it may be nausea, frequent sighing or yawning, dry mouth, inability to concentrate, craving solitude, muscular weakness, loss of appetite, tightness in the chest, and so on. There are many possible physical symptoms, too many to catalogue; the important thing is to work out what grief feels like to you.

Then, when you realise that you're grieving, the second step is to accept it. As last week's post shows, I haven't quite got the hang of this yet! And please note I'm focusing on unexpected reactions here. In the early stages of grief, it's obvious that anniversaries will be difficult, and it's often possible to plan a coping strategy. I think part of what feels difficult for me about unexpected grief is that there's no telling how long it will last. My fear is that I'll be sucked back into a morass of misery that will prevail for weeks or months. But after several years that's very unlikely to happen. In fact, last time around, it took just one day. So I'm working on being ready, next time, to say to myself 'I'm grieving again; that's OK; it'll take as long as it takes.'

The third step is to work out what you want and need to do while you're grieving. This may be difficult to manage if you have to look after children, or go to work, or care for an elderly relative - although for some people, such imperatives may make life easier. Even if you don't have other commitments, it can be hard to decide what is best for you. One of my own classic grief responses is that I crave company when I'm alone and solitude when I'm with others. I'm not sure I'll ever find the answer to that. And up to now I haven't been sure what other options are available to me.

So I've done some research, and I'd like to share these for things you can do when an anniversary or other grief reaction hits out of the blue. But, please, only do what feels right for you. Nobody else can dictate your grieving process.

Cancel all appointments and stay at home.
Contact a friend and ask for their company.
Contact friends and organise a night out.
Write a letter to the person who has died.
Write a letter to you, from the person who has died.
Do something creative: write a poem, draw a picture, make a collage.
Look through photos of the person who has died.
Cry.
Light a candle.
Find a bereavement chatroom on the Internet and share your feelings with others.
Ring the Samaritans.
Do something you wouldn't usually do that links you to the person who has died, e.g. watch their favourite TV programme or film, eat their favourite food, drink their favourite drink.
Contact someone else who loved the person who has died, and talk to them about the person and about how you feel.
Stick to a familiar routine.
Do something unusual.
Stay in bed.
Have a touch-based treatment such as massage, reflexology or manicure.
Watch an escapist film, or read an escapist book. (Or one that will make you cry, if that would be helpful.)
Allow yourself to lose hours in a computer game.
Write down all the ways in which the person who has died influenced your life for the better.
Visit a significant place: the person's grave; where their ashes were scattered; where they died; somewhere that was special for them. Take flowers if you like.
Make a donation in their name to their favourite charity, or yours, or one that seems appropriate (e.g. if they had a much-loved cat, to the Cat's Protection League).
Let yourself feel sad and bereft.
Meditate or pray.
Go for a walk and observe the natural world.

I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list of possible options, so if you've found other things that work for you, please do share them in the comments box.

Simon and Me

2008-11-10T07:45:00.002Z

Back in 2002 Simon, a very dear friend and ex-partner of mine, was set upon and killed in the street near his home in London. It was apparently a random, motiveless attack, and nobody has ever been charged with his murder. If I find myself in that part of London, I still look at men's faces and think, 'Was it you? Were you involved? Did you do it?'

Simon had been going through a difficult patch, but his life had begun to improve. He'd managed to stay with his very nice girlfriend; he'd got back in touch with a couple of friends he'd previously fallen out with; and, on the day he was killed, he had received a promotion and a pay rise at work. It comforted Simon's friends and family to know that he died fast and died happy. But dealing with the aftermath of his sudden, violent death was hard for all of us. It was many weeks before the police would release his body for cremation, which made it worse.

The friends I had in common with Simon speak of him sometimes. He wasn't always an easy man to be around. He was an avant-garde poet, and much of his writing was incomprehensible. He liked to challenge people's perceptions, and his own. He loved to listen to music everywhere he went - he would have adored the iPod - but he preferred obscure, difficult music to nice songs with tunes. He was also a very caring man. He did voluntary work with homeless teenagers, and his paid work was with teenagers, too, in the careers service. It was almost a vocation for him to help youngsters who were struggling to find their way in the world, and to treat them with respect. Simon would also put himself out to help a friend. I remember his friend Rick sadly became a drug addict. Most of Rick's friends gave up on him, but not Simon - even after Rick began to steal things from our home. Simon talked it over with me, and decided to refuse Rick entry to our house, but offer to meet him anywhere else - pub, cafe, library, Rick's own flat. And when Rick phoned, in despair, Simon would talk to him for hours. I remember a night when Rick was suicidal, and was challenging Simon to give him one good reason why he shouldn't end his life.

'Because I love you,' Simon said.

Which, it seems to me, is quite a big deal for a man to say to his male friend. But if ever a man was going to say that, it would have been Simon.

Simon was excited by technological advances and always wanted the latest gadget. If he was alive now, I have no doubt that he'd own a huge plasma screen TV and DVD player with HD and Blu Ray, and a state-of-the-art laptop, and of course an iPod, and a Wii, and all those things. Whenever something new comes out I feel sad that he missed it.

But the really tough times are the anniversaries. Not the public ones like Christmas; people remember him then, and speak of him. It's the anniversaries of his death, and his funeral, that I find hard.

Having said that, it does get easier each year. Last year, the fifth year, went well, and I thought I'd cracked it. This year, the run-up to Simon's deathday passed almost without notice. I was preoccupied with other things, and although I remembered the anniversary was coming up, and checked in with myself a couple of times - like pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts - I felt fine. I congratulated myself.

Then on the day itself - wallop. I was tearful, felt empty, wanted to curl up under the duvet with a very large pizza, didn't want company, didn't want to be alone, missed Simon terribly. I didn't know what to do, so I settled on beating myself up for still being upset six years after his death (I know, I know). I had visitors who I chose not to discuss it with. They had known and liked Simon, but they were having problems of their own, and if they weren't remembering his deathday, I didn't want to remind them and so add extra stress to their already stressful lives. But I did want them to remember, or someone to, and email me or text or something, anything, to let me know I wasn't remembering all by myself. I thought about emailing others, and tried, but I couldn't find the words I needed to express what I wanted to say. Probably because I wasn't sure what I did want to say. So in the end I just muddled through the day, claimed to have a headache when anyone asked if I was OK, and eventually, after everyone else had gone to bed, had a big cry and then went to bed myself.

I realise this wasn't a great strategy, but it was all I could come up with at the time. I've had a look around on the web, and there are some useful articles about dealing with bereavement anniversaries. I'll post some advice next week, which may be helpful for others, but mostly it's for me, for next year.

Jaw Jaw

2008-11-03T08:53:00.002Z

Red poppies are widely sold in Commonwealth countries at this time of year (or in April in the Antipodes) for people to wear in remembrance of their war dead. This custom began after World War 1, as poppies grew in the killing fields of France. That was 'the war to end all wars'. But it didn't, did it?

There can be a lot of pressure to wear a red poppy: from churches, schools, the British Legion, other institutions, and individuals. BBC broadcaster Jon Snow described this as 'poppy fascism'. The red poppy is a symbol from a time when forces personnel who didn't come back from war were 'our glorious dead', to be remembered for their heroic role in saving the world from violence and conflict. But death is not glorious, and violence and conflict prevail.

People began to realise this soon after the end of the first World War. In 1926 the British Legion was asked to imprint 'No More War' in the centre of the red poppy. They didn't, so in 1933 the Co-operative Women's Guild produced white poppies to be worn as an alternative by those who believe there are better ways of resolving conflicts than killing people. This was regarded as an insult to those who died in the first World War - conveniently ignoring the fact that many members of the Co-operative Women's Guild lost husbands, sons, brothers and lovers - and some women lost their jobs for wearing a white poppy.

In 1936, with another huge war brewing in Europe, the white poppy was taken up by the Peace Pledge Union as a symbol of people's determination that war should not happen again. In 1937, an ex-serviceman broke the Remembrance Day Silence at the Cenotaph, crying out against the hypocrisy of praying for peace while preparing for war. In 1938 'alternative remembrance' events began, including the laying of a wreath of white poppies at the Cenotaph.

Did any of this make any difference? On the face of it, not a lot. My taxes are still paying for British service personnel to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. War still rages in dozens of countries around the world. And although some religious groups now support the white poppy, it does seem to have caused much conflict on an individual level, with recent problems for its supporters in churches and Scout groups and other arenas.

Given that one of my grandfathers fought in the trenches of the first World War and survived (minus a foot), while the other landed at Dieppe in the second World War and also survived (minus most of his compassion after three years in a German POW camp), you'd think I'd be an avid red poppy supporter. But I'm not, because both of my grandfathers came home convinced of the utter futility of war, and they passed that on to me. I'm not anti-red poppy either; I'm pro-choice. Some people wear both. That's great. But for me, for ever, it's the white poppy.

All Aboard

2008-10-29T10:27:00.002Z

trying again - I hope the formatting behaves this time...

The atheist bus campaign had me glued to the interweb last week. In case anyone has missed this, here's a quick recap. Comedienne Ariane Sherine started it back in June. She wrote a piece for the Guardian's Comment is Free blog expressing her annoyance at religious advertisements on London buses which, while innocuous in themselves, had a URL linking to a website which said that all unbelievers would be condemned to an eternity of torment in hell. She thought this could be a dangerous message for those of fragile mental health. In a light-hearted end to her post, she suggested that atheists should contribute funds to pay for adverts to counteract this, saying - in a nod to the famous litigation-ducking Carlsberg advert - 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.'

That post received 286 comments, many of them in support of Ariane's suggestion. Things moved slowly from there, but by the beginning of last week there was a firm proposal to fund-raise £11,000 to pay for 4 weeks of advertising on 30 London buses. Richard Dawkins promised to stump up £5,500 if the UK's atheists could raise the other half, and the British Humanist Association (BHA) offered to administer the funds. A fundraising webpage was set up on the JustGiving site and launched, with a new CiF blog post from Ariane, on Tuesday of last week.

In less than 24 hours, the £5,500 had been raised and donations were pouring in. Ariane's post received over 2,000 comments (is that a record for CiF does anyone know?). By lunchtime on Thursday the campaign had raised over £80,000 (not including the Gift Aid) and Ariane posted an update asking for suggestions on what to do with the money. Also, detractors were appearing in the media, such as Stephen Green from the pressure group Christian Voice who, according to the BBC, said atheists were 'a danger to the public at large', and Mary Kenny in the Guardian CiF who said atheists were 'gloomy blighters with a depressing and nihilistic message' with 'their dreary humanist funerals' (grrrr! and just how much fun was the last Christian funeral you went to?).

It also prompted an Internet phenomenon. The minimum donation at JustGiving is £2 and you can leave your name and a 150-character message. The donations page became a chat room where people were paying £2, £5 or £10 to leave a message. By about 4.30 pm on Friday, the total was £98,000; Steve in Oz was refusing to go to bed until the £100,000 mark had been reached; I was refreshing the page every five minutes to see what would happen next. Then a single donor banged in the necessary £2k with a message saying 'bye bye savings, sleep well Steve'. And, to my joy, that donor's name was Simon Bishop.

But it didn't stop there: at the time of writing, 7 am on Monday 27th Oct, the total stands at £109,149.83 (and that's without the Gift Aid). I find the messages on the JustGiving page very touching, particularly those from people in places like Ireland and middle America saying 'please bring your campaign here, we really need you'.

Some religious people are supporting this campaign. The BBC reports that Methodists have thanked Richard Dawkins for encouraging a 'continued interest in God' (they're cool, the Methodists - they do good funerals, too, although no doubt Mary Kenny would disagree). Equally, comments on the JustGiving page and the CiF posts show that some atheists are not happy, particularly because of the inclusion in the message of the word 'probably'.

I am particularly happy because of the inclusion of the word 'probably'. I don't agree with Richard Dawkins on everything, but I do agree that 'there is no God' is every bit as much of a belief statement as 'there is a God'. The existence of God cannot be proven; nor can his or her or its non-existence. There are fundamentalist atheists; I am not one of them. I don't want to trash other people's beliefs which may bring great happiness and stability to their lives. I am also happy to see the BHA supporting this stance. A few years ago I used to take part in debates with religious people on local radio about all sorts of vaguely topical issues: should we wear red poppies or white in November; has Christmas become too commercial; is it right for us to take such a prurient interest in the sex life of politicians. In one of these debates I was asked about my own beliefs, and I said I thought belief was inconsistent; that I had seen this in the families I work with, and reflected on it, and concluded that my own position was the same. Although it feels easier for me to think at any one moment that my own beliefs are utterly consistent over time, in fact they seem to waver along a line between two points on the atheist/agnostic end of the spectrum. The powers-that-be at the BHA at the time were not happy with me, and I have never done another radio debate since (although as a conscientious mostly-atheist I should acknowledge that this could be a complete coincidence).

For many years, for many reasons, I felt rather uncomfortable within the BHA. I have to be a member to do funerals under their auspices, and that is why I joined, but after the first few years there was much about the organisation that troubled me. It felt dangerous to speak up, to try to change things, so I paid my subscription, kept my head down and got on with my work. Alternative organisations and groups have arisen in the last two or three years, some of which are listed on my sidebar. I thought seriously about jumping ship at one point, but I like to give the families I work with the security of a complaints procedure and a management structure that they can resort to should the need arise, and at that time the other organisations were embryonic. So I stayed put. And now I'm very glad I did - again, for many reasons, but feeling that my own stance is finally being supported by the organisation is the icing on the cake.

Stop Press

2008-10-28T12:40:00.001Z

This blog is misbehaving in Internet Explorer. I have no idea why. But it's fine in Firefox - which is worth using anyway because it's more secure from nasty malware virus-type things, and it's so easy to switch that even I could do it.

Shallow As A Puddle

2008-10-23T12:31:00.004Z

Yes, I know I only post on Mondays. But, you see, I've done something so exciting that I can't wait any longer to tell you about it.

I've commented on various people's blogs as usual over the last couple of days, dutifully reading their posts and saying something relevant rather than going LOOK LOOK AREN'T I CLEVER which is what I really wanted to do. It's just possible that some of you may have noticed, but I can't tell because nobody's said anything. Honestly, it's as bad as getting your hair done and nobody remarking on how wonderful you look.

Do you know what I've done? I've got a picture for my profile!!! No longer will I appear in people's comments boxes as an anonymous grey Blogger shadow. No, I'm a proper Zinnia now, thanks to Carol who kindly gave me permission to use her beautiful photograph of a lovely pink zinnia from this post. AND I managed to upload it to the right bit of Blogger, AND it works, AND it's in my sidebar too. It's only taken me four and a bit years. *sigh*

Now, from flowers to followers. I've managed to 'follow' some blogs from my sidebar, but so far I fail to see the point. I thought it would make it easier for me to see who has posted recently, but it doesn't seem to. So I'm not all that clever, am I? All suggestions gratefully received... oh and while you're at it, if anyone can tell me how to make my blog header go back to the centre, that would be really helpful too... *deep sigh*

Maps

2008-10-20T09:11:00.002Z

A dear friend came to visit last week. She drove to my house and, like most people who try to get here using a satellite navigation system, took much longer to arrive than either of us expected. She's been here before, driven by her partner, who took the longer-but-quicker route via the motorway. I thought she'd remember, but no (perhaps not surprising; she has had a baby since then). The sat nav sent her via the shorter-but-very-much-slower route through lots of pretty countryside.

I don't have a sat nav. There's only room for one bossy voice in MY car. And anyway, in contravention of international gender laws, I'm an excellent map-reader and navigator. Unlike Top Bloke (tee hee) who has been known to refer to me as his 'demon navigatrix'. (Which sounds like one of Rachel's characters!)

I love maps. I'd hate to be without them. Sometimes, e.g. when Top Bloke is driving, I'll have a read of the map for pure entertainment. My father taught me to map-read when I was eight or nine, and I soon became the family navigator; a skill worth acquiring as it meant I could sit in the front of the car. By my mid-teens, I had navigated us on driving holidays all over Europe.

That was just road maps. Being introduced to Ordnance Survey maps, in my geography class at secondary school, almost blew my mind. So much detail! I could almost see the countryside as my finger moved up wriggly blue streams, down contour-lined hillsides, across clearly bounded fields, along dotted green footpaths – one dot per footstep, as I fondly imagined at the time.

Captain Cook was brilliant at mapmaking, or 'cartography' as it is formally known. He made maps of huge chunks of the world's coastlines, from Newfoundland to New Zealand, in the second half of the 18^th century. These maps were so accurate and precise that some were still in use over 200 years later. I can draw maps, too. Not fabulous ones like his, obviously, but the kind that will enable visitors to get from my house to somewhere else and back.

But I think navigation with maps is going out of fashion. I feel a bit sad about this. And yet I can hear echoes of my grandfather who, as a talented mathematician, was horrified to discover that I was given an electronic calculator to use in maths lessons at school. He tried to teach me mental arithmetic, but I wasn't interested. Electronic calculation was progress; I thought maths was boring anyway, and I was up for anything that made life easier. I guess, if you substitute 'maps' for 'maths', this is how a lot of people feel about their sat navs. And me superciliously referring to them as 'prat navs' probably isn't going to change that.

So now I'm an anachronism. Great. But I shall stubbornly continue to use maps for as long as I can. And anyway, nobody ever broke into someone's car to steal their battered, dog-eared old road map. So there.

The Bad and The Good

2008-10-13T07:28:00.007Z

This is a public service post covering two things you and/or your friends and family need to know about. The first is a funeral service warning, the second a writing service recommendation.

The warning is about a conman called Richard Sage. I first heard about this apparently odious specimen of humanity when Charles blogged about him a couple of months ago. Then last week I had a warning from the British Humanist Association saying:

A reliable source has informed two of our celebrants in the London area of a fraudulent person, currently working as Richard Sage, operating a company currently known as Direct Funeral Services. This company acts as an agent, putting bereaved people looking for FDs via the web, in touch with FDs on the high street. It would appear that the company is run from a call centre in Croydon and might have premises in the Midlands.
This man and his company owe money to people in the funeral trade across London. One of our celebrants has had direct dealings with the company and has asked me to pass on strong words of caution to you all. According to press cuttings and to an item on a Radio 4 programme, this man has served several prison sentences for fraud and attracted numerous complaints about his business practices.

I strongly advise you to decline funerals if you are offered them via this company. We can of course do little to protect the families who are dealing with him, other than to explain our own reasons for declining.

This article suggests that England is not the only place where Richard Sage operates, so readers everywhere, be aware and beware. I know you can't believe everything you read on the Internet, but it does seem fairly clear that this man chooses to make dishonest money from newly bereaved people, and that seems to me to be entirely despicable.

To restore your faith in humanity, let me introduce Caroline Smailes and her new venture, BubbleCow. Caroline is a novelist with a passion for helping other writers. I know this from personal experience. At one point I was really struggling, and whinged about it on here, and out of the blue she emailed me and said 'please can I help?' and I said 'hell yeah' and she did help. A lot. And now she's reaching out to writers all over the world by starting an online editorial and mentoring service. She's done loads of editoring and mentoring for publishers in the past, and she's recruiting others who have similar experience to work with her. And here's the good bit for writers: it's cheaper than other editorial/mentoring services, and they guarantee a seven-day turnaround for any editing work. Other agencies take weeks, even months, or charge a hefty supplement if you want it done more quickly. Plus BubbleCow only accept online submissions, which make it cheaper and faster still - and, of course, this means the service is readily available to writers from outside the UK.

So hurrah for Caroline: a full-time novelist and parent of three, who also supports legions of other writers and still finds time to raise money for charity and start her own business. She's a great antidote to the Richard Sages of this world, not to mention being an inspiration.

Zinnia, Why Don't You Write About Funerals Any More?

2008-10-06T09:17:00.004Z

I have two answers to this question. One is that I do still write about funerals, but not as often as I used to. So why is that? Well, when I started this blog over four years ago, I'd already been doing funerals for a number of years, and I had a lot of stories stacked up in my head that needed an outlet. I've written most of them now. Most of the funerals I do are very similar: person dies of old age or age-related illness, family grieve, ceremony is personal, and that's about it. Also, I have to be very careful to preserve the anonymity of the families I work with, so I can only write about funerals where I'm confident that I can change enough details to protect the family while preserving the essence of the story for my readers. And some stories, wonderful though they are, will have to stay in my head because they are too specific to tell in public. For example, if a strawberry farmer committed suicide by eating strawberries until he died of a strawberry overdose, it would be so unusual that even if I turned him into a female gooseberry farmer, it wouldn't be enough.

But you know what? There are other people in blogland writing about funerals. Charles, for example, is currently producing some very good posts about funerals and related matters. And if you want to find new blogs, you could always use Caroline's Black Boxes widget that I have FINALLY managed to put on my sidebar (round of applause please). I think it's very appropriate for this blog because it looks so much like a coffin, American casket style, even down to the ruched silk lining. Mmmm, tactile. Procrastinators beware!

Paranormal #3

2008-09-29T06:16:00.004Z

So, to return to Crystal's question in the context of my experiences, what are my thoughts on the paranormal?

I think many people have paranormal experiences, and they're not just about spirits or ghosts or whatever you want to call them. Take my friend Annie. She was a dinner lady at my school when I was a teenager, and I liked her a lot. She'd had a load of health problems and had various internal organs removed, she was overweight, and she had an endless reserve of care for the stroppy hormonal youngsters who came through her canteen, as well as a ready laugh. She always had a ladle in her hand, and would brandish it at cheeky kids, mock-threatening them: 'and it'll have custard in it next time, my laddie.' But we all knew a hug was the most likely outcome of any encounter with Annie.

Then she got sick again, and had to stop work. I knew where she lived and went to see her. I met her son Robert, a gentle bearded hippie who I thought was a bit boring for wearing sandals and still living with his mum when he was a grown-up. The only thing that seemed to interest Robert was his Buddhist shrine in the corner of the small living room. He showed it to me, and I thought it was quite pretty but couldn't really see the point. Annie told me Robert used to chant for hours - nam myoho renge kyo - over and over again. I concluded that he was definitely boring, but of course I didn't say so to Annie. She said he wanted her to chant, too, but she couldn't see the point.

Her health got worse and she was taken into hospital. A few weeks later I was walking past her house and saw her through the window, sitting in her armchair. My heart lifted and I ran down the path to knock on the door. She took ages to answer, and when she did she was gaunt and yellow. 'They've given me four weeks,' she said. 'They wanted me to stay in hospital, but I said if I've only got four weeks to live I'm not spending it in here thank you very much. Robert fetched me in a taxi. Cost the earth. Do you want a cup of tea?'

I went in and we chatted. She told me that Robert had persuaded her to try chanting, and she thought she'd give it a go because she had nothing to lose. She couldn't believe it would make any difference in the end, but she was surprised to find that it was soothing and seemed to reduce her pain. 'So I'll carry on. And, anyway, it makes him happy.'

That was Annie. Always looking for ways to make others happy. We had a lovely chat, a goodbye hug, I walked away and burst into tears, sure I would never see her again.

But a few months later I bumped into her in town. Her cheeks were pink again and she'd regained some weight, although she was walking slowly, with a stick. I gasped in disbelief and she grinned. 'The doctors didn't believe it, either. They took new X-rays last month and that cancer's all gone. They thought they'd made a mix-up with the old X-rays, but I've got so many other bits missing they had to accept that both were mine and I was cured.'

'But how? What happened?'

We went for a coffee and she explained that the chanting had cured her. She had found it so soothing that she had done more and more of it, and slowly, day by day, she'd begun to feel better; been able to do a little more; eat a little more; slowly climb back towards health. When the doctors' four-week deadline passed, she felt triumphant, and chanted even more, often chanting for eight hours a day. 'I'm not doing so much now, just four hours most days,' she told me. 'I think I'll stick to that for the rest of my life, however long or short that is.'

'Will you be coming back to work?' I asked, hopefully.

'No, chick. It's too much time on my feet.'

'So what will you do?'

Annie looked down at the tablecloth and fiddled with a teaspoon. 'I've written little children's stories for years. I used to write them for Robert. I sent some off to a publisher when I first got sick, and they've taken four for a series of picture books.'

'Annie, that's great!'

She looked up and grinned again. 'A new lease of life.'

I don't know how long Annie lived, because we moved away a few years later and lost contact soon afterwards. But she was still alive and healthy when we moved, and doing very well with her stories - many had been published and she was also broadcasting them in a children's slot on local radio.

Annie's experience was definitely paranormal, i.e. beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. (Although maybe science would be able to explain it now; I don't know, I'm not a scientist.) And what I think is that all sorts of people have all sorts of experiences that science can't explain. These range from a woman I've met a couple of times who is convinced she is regularly abducted by aliens, to a friend who has strange sensations in his legs that have no apparent medical cause.

That people have many and varied experiences which cannot be explained seems to me self-evident, obvious, a fact. Maybe I'm odd here, but I don't feel the need to look for an overarching explanation. I don't need a religious or scientific framework to answer everything for me. Not that such a framework could answer everything, but with both religion and science there seems to be a kind of underlying assumption that we could understand everything if we had enough divinity, resources, power or time. I'm happy just to say that I, and people I know, have experiences we can't explain. Such experiences do interest me - but I don't feel the need to link them to belief, and then convert that through an alchemical cerebral/emotional process into knowledge. In fact I think that way danger lies. It's not logical, Captain. I know there is X because I believe in Y based on my experience of Z? Hmmm.

So why am I even interested? Because paranormal experiences make damn good stories, that's why!

Paranormal #2

2008-09-22T15:24:00.004Z

So here's my second experience, and it's very different from the first. Years ago my sister and I moved into a fairly modern house with her young son who I will call Sean, he was about two years old at the time. We had found the house through friends of friends, who told us that the previous resident was an elderly woman called Dilys. She had brought up her daughter there, nursed her husband through his last illness, and eventually died there herself.

The house was perfect for us: three bedrooms, nice kitchen, bathroom and living room, small paved garden area, and very affordable (mainly because Dilys's daughter, who inherited it, wanted to rent it to someone she knew for a year or two while she decided what to do with it). It couldn't have been better. We moved in full of happiness and optimism.

Then the trouble started. Lights went on and off by themselves. Internal doors opened and closed when there was no wind to help them. My sister and I were puzzled by this, until Sean told us, very matter-of-factly, that it was 'the lady'. He didn't seem bothered by her, or particularly interested. He also found it hard to believe that we couldn't see her. She seemed, to him, like part of the furniture.

We took our cue from Sean and it became part of the family chatter. We'd all be in the kitchen, and the hallway light would go off.

'Is that the lady, Sean?' one of us would ask.

'Yep,' he'd say.

We even began to greet her. We'd be sitting in the living room and the door would open. 'Hello, Dilys,' my sister would say. 'Come on in. Take a seat.'

(It's a funny thing. I know this happened, because it happened to me. But, even as I'm typing, I still don't believe in it!)

Anyway, everything settled down into a peaceful routine, until one weekend. My sister and I were up late on the Friday night, gossiping over a glass of wine. Sean was fast asleep upstairs - until he squealed like a pig being slaughtered. She shot upstairs and found that he'd had a nightmare. He was terrified and refused to let her go, so she brought him back down with her, figuring that a change of scene might help. And it did. He soon brightened up and started chatting, delighted to be up in the middle of the night with his mum and his auntie.

Sean had a favourite storybook at the time in which the characters had a midnight feast. He decided it would be a good idea if we had one ourselves. So we spread a teatowel on the living room carpet, made a little picnic of fruit, biscuits and drinks, and settled down for a 'feast'.

And the doors started banging open and closed, and the lights going on and off, like some kind of post-modernist actorless theatre performance. I don't know whether it was the influence of Sean's recent nightmare, or whether there really was a change of mood or something, but this time 'the lady' was scaring him. 'It's the lady, it's the lady,' he kept saying, and clinging to his mum. And I don't know whether it was the wine I'd drunk, or what, but I shouted at Dilys to stop, told her it wasn't reasonable for her to frighten Sean and that she should move on now.

You know what? She did. It all stopped, right there, right then. We lived in that house for a couple of years, and we never had another light go on or off, or another door open or close, without a clear and evident reason.

Paranormal #1

2008-09-15T12:56:00.002Z

Last week Crystal posed a question on her blog:

What are your thoughts on the paranormal? Does it scare you, fascinate you, fill you with dread, enlighten you? Does it make you ask if there really is more to this life, or does it simply make you shake your head in disbelief?

She was asking for people's opinions, but it got me thinking about my own paranormal experiences. Crystal has lots of these and blogs about them regularly. I've had two. Here's the first one.

When I was in my late teens, I had a boyfriend who I will call John. We went to stay with some slightly older friends who had just moved into a huge old tumbledown house in the country, with the aim of renovating it for use as a conference centre. They had made up a bed for us in a first-floor room which was otherwise unfurnished. There was a small rug on the floor, but no carpet, and no central heating – which didn't matter as it was a warm late summer weekend. They apologised for the rough-and-ready nature of our accommodation, but we weren't worried.

The evening passed pleasantly with lots of chat, food and I daresay a drink or three. We went to bed late and fell into a deep sleep. Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up. John woke at the same time. The same sound had disturbed us both. Something was walking round the bed, with a heavy clanking tread. We couldn't see anything – the room was pitch dark – but there was, and I know this sounds corny but honestly, there was, an icy chill in the air. John and I dived under the bedclothes and clutched each other, shivering and exchanging staccato whispers: What is it? I don't know. What shall we do? I don't know. We were both terrified, but the sounds soon died down, and eventually we went back to sleep.

In the morning we both felt a bit silly. Was it a dream, we wondered? Should we say anything?

Over breakfast, in the course of conversation, John made an oblique quip about old houses being haunted.

'Why do you say that?' our host asked.

'We had an odd experience last night…'

John turned to me for help, evidently unsure what to say. I explained what had happened. Our hosts looked at each other, then at us.

'You too, then,' our host said.

'Eh?' John said.

They told us that two other couples had stayed in that room before us. Both had reported the same experience.

I'll tell you about my second and, so far, only other paranormal experience next week. And the week after that, I'll try to work out what I think about them.

When Do You Compliment?

2008-09-08T08:09:00.004Z

Let's get one thing straight before we start. To compliment is to say something nice about someone. To complement is to add one thing to another to improve it in some way. So 'those red shoes compliment that black dress' is nonsense, because shoes can't talk. 'Those red shoes complement that black dress' works, because it means the shoes make the dress look better. Got that?

And the other day I saw a wagon with, emblazoned on its door, 'Tiles Brought And Sold.' Dear, dear, dear…

Anyway, if I'm not careful this will turn into a lengthy rant about improper uses of English. Let's get back to compliments. I wrote about complaining last week, but I think it's as important to compliment work well done as to complain about poor service. And I do.

I remember, many years ago, I was working in London with troubled teenagers. One girl, the first time I met her, made a disclosure of sexual abuse. In these cases we had to involve the police, so I called our local station and they sent round a policeman. He and I sat with her while she told her story again, in the course of which she also spoke about 'the voices' she heard and how they had told her she must die on a certain date – just two weeks away. It became increasingly evident that she was seriously disturbed, yet the policeman dealt with her with enormous sensitivity and compassion, leaving her dignity entirely intact. (This was in the late 1980s, when the Metropolitan Police weren't exactly renowned for their sensitivity.) After he had left I rang the station again and asked to speak to the senior officer on duty. I refused to tell anyone the reason for my call – this was actually for reasons of confidentiality, but I confess to taking naughty pleasure in the alarm it evidently caused; I'm sure they were expecting a complaint. When I was put through to the senior officer, I told him what had happened, and said how impressed I was with the policeman's work. He was astonished, then grateful, and finally asked if I'd be willing to put my thoughts in a letter, so it could go on the policeman's record and be taken into account when he was considered for promotion. I was very happy to do so.

A few years ago I was rushed into hospital with acute abdominal pains. After two days the pain had subsided and I was allowed to go home, albeit with strict instructions to come straight back if the pain returned. (It didn't – and nobody ever found out what caused it.) At the follow-up appointment with my doctor, I gave her a full account of my experience, ending by saying that I felt I'd been very well looked after and I was very grateful for the NHS. She exhaled sharply and said she'd been waiting for the 'but', because she was sure I was going to complain. Maybe I come across as a complaining type of person – but I think it's more that we live in something of a 'complaint culture' and it's rare for people to reward good service with a compliment.

I'm very glad to say it's not at all rare in the celebrant business. Nearly every funeral I do results in a card, letter, email or text message of thanks. Quite often families send gifts or flowers after the ceremony, or give me a cash tip in an envelope on the day (I think these are the ones who know how much we get paid – £100-£155 in the UK, depending on the region you work in. We definitely don't do it for the money; it comes in handy, for sure, but you can't make a living from being a celebrant. Did you know the average cost of flowers for a funeral is £229? I know florists need to earn a living, too – but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about how that makes us feel).

Sorry, I seem to be having a tangential day. Where were we? Oh yes, compliments. I keep all the cards, letters and emails in my Nice Letters File (everyone should have one) so I'm going to share a few quotes. Names have, of course, been changed.

Jim, Sally and I would like to offer you our very grateful thanks for conducting Bob's funeral. We felt it was very much the sort of ceremony he wanted and your words encapsulated his life. They helped enormously with our grieving process and the three of us are now able to move forward.

We were all so grateful for the way you conducted last Friday's ceremony that I wanted to write and thank you again. Your calm professionalism helped us to cope with our feelings of sadness, so that we too were more able to play our parts. It was certainly a comfort to know that you would step in and cover for us if need be.

These occasions are always very distressing to those involved and you helped greatly in relieving that distress and making us think about the love we had shared with Sam during his life.

One of my friends, a committed Christian, was especially complimentary. He said he felt included and well able to share with us as we said our goodbyes to Mother.

I could go on, but you'd get bored and I'd start blushing. But aren't those lovely? I often get my Nice Letters File out and read a few of them if I'm feeling a bit down. They never fail to cheer me up. And it's because I know how good it feels to receive a compliment for work well done, that I try to give a compliment whenever I think it's deserved.

So what do you think about this? Do you think the way I approach compliments makes sense, or do you think I'm missing something? Do you give compliments, or do you keep quiet? Do you receive compliments on your work – and, if so, how does it feel?

When Do You Complain?

2008-09-01T08:50:00.003Z

I'm coming out of the closet: I'm a staunch complainer. I'm not a member of the Green Ink Brigade, though – I aim to base my complaints on reason and fact.

I made such a complaint last week. In brief: four weeks after receiving the critique of my novel, I decided it wasn't helpful. I was unhappy about the service I'd received from a reputable literary agency. I wrote them a carefully worded letter explaining why the critique hadn't worked for me. I didn't think it would get me anywhere – but it did! The director of the agency agreed, and is arranging for me to have another critique, free of charge.

A lot of people have said, both on the Novel Racers and by email, that they couldn't have made such a complaint. And that got me thinking about complaints in general. You see, I believe that if you receive poor service, it's important to complain. If you don't complain when something goes wrong, how will anyone know? If I hadn't written that letter, the agency would have assumed I was happy with the critique I'd received – and that the reader, whose first critique it was, could be given further manuscripts. As the agency acknowledged that her report 'had not worked', I can't see them giving her more manuscripts without, at the very least, clarifying their expectations and requirements. She did make some good points, so she evidently has potential as a critique writer. If she can learn whatever she needs to learn from this experience, and produce useful critiques in future, then I will have helped her too. I will also have helped other aspiring writers – and this is one of my main reasons for complaining: it can help to prevent other people having a similarly bad experience.

Another reason is that a complaint often yields redress. A few years ago I was groped in an off-licence by another customer. It was fairly unpleasant, and the staff were no help at all. I wrote down the details, sent them to the head office, and received a lovely bouquet of flowers and a full apology. Last year I spent over an hour on the phone to my insurance company, trying to get an answer to a simple query; ended up speaking to several different people, being cut off twice, and generally having a very frustrating time. After about half an hour, while I held the phone with one hand, I typed an account of my experience into their online feedback form with the other hand – which was useful as it stopped me imploding from rage, and also resulted in a very nice bottle of wine. Also, in both cases, the companies concerned said they would review their staff training procedures to try to prevent a re-occurrence.

Other complaints have yielded nothing but a response I could summarise as 'tough, live with it'. And I don't always complain, even when I'm not happy. Top Bloke and I were badly short-changed by a Corgi-registered plumber a while back, and I was all for writing to Corgi, but Top Bloke counselled caution. 'This is a small town,' he said, 'there aren't many plumbers here, they probably all talk to each other, and we might find we couldn't get a plumber to work for us any more.' I saw the sense in that. Then recently I was expecting a parcel by guaranteed next-day delivery, an expensive service that in theory guarantees delivery by 1 pm. The parcel didn't arrive; I telephoned the sender, who began to make enquiries; then at 1.35 a harassed postman appeared at my door, full of apologies and explanations about being short-staffed. Our local post office closed recently and the main one in town is under enormous pressure as a result. So I didn't complain, because I know they've got problems; I know they know what they are; and I know there is very little they can do about them.

I've been on the other side of the fence: managing complaints procedures, mostly in the non-profit sector. I know that organisations and individuals can learn a lot from complaints. It's not an easy way to learn lessons – it can be stressful and time-consuming – but ultimately it's more beneficial than detrimental. Some years ago the Charity Commission, which regulates charities here in the UK, produced a report called Cause For Complaint? They say that a complaints procedure can bring a range of benefits, including, crucially, strengthening charities' capacity to deliver good-quality services and building the trust of their users, stakeholders and the wider public.

I'd also be happy to be complained about, should the need arise. The British Humanist Association, the charity which trained and accredited me to work as a celebrant, has a robust complaints procedure. I'm glad to say that nobody has ever complained about me – but I'm also glad to know that they can, if something goes wrong. I make a point of telling families this option is available.

So what do you think about this? Do you think the way I complain makes sense, or do you think I'm missing something? Do you complain, or do you keep quiet? Have you ever been complained about?

(I pay compliments, too, when credit is due. I'll write about this next week.)

Triple Decker

2008-08-25T08:36:00.004Z

There have been three notable things (thanks, Cathy) in the blogosphere this week.

The first was sent to me by Charles (thanks, Charles) and concerns the granting of an unusual last request. A young Puerto Rican man had said many times that when he died (well actually he's reported as saying 'if', but I expect he meant 'when') he didn't want to be viewed lying down at his wake; he wanted to 'be seen standing'. So when he was killed at the age of 24, his family relayed this request to the funeral directors, who seem to have done a good job.

I found the second one in the Guardian. Marc from the Netherlands tells the tale of his mother's euthanasia. It's a story of an ordinary family dealing with a very difficult situation, of regret, love and missed opportunities. Unflinchingly honest and emotionally graphic, I found it incredibly moving.

The third came via Lisa (thanks, Lisa), and it's a blog. The blogger is Adrian Sudbury, a young man of 27 who died of leukaemia last week. His story is inspirational. He was diagnosed in November 2006. Doctors soon discovered that, uniquely, he had two strains of the disease. He had a bone marrow transplant in 2007, but earlier this year his body rejected the transplant. Yet he spent his last year of life campaigning for classes on blood donation, organ and marrow transplants to be made compulsory in UK schools. The transplant he received gave him that extra year, and he did more with it than many of us do with an entire lifetime. If you are an organ donor, and/or you give blood, why not join the bone marrow register too?

I've just read a post over on the Novel Racers, asking how writers keep going when life gets stressful. How much more stressful can life be than knowing you are terminally ill? Yet it did get worse for Adrian when his fiancee, who he had been with for seven years, left him in April 2008. Nevertheless, he promptly wrote an impressive post about the experience. I only discovered Adrian's blog a few weeks ago, and never commented - but I have read most of his archives. He was a serious writer and I think he would be glad to know that, as well as helping so many people through his health campaign, he has also helped at least one writer simply through his own writing. Because now, any time I start feeling life is too difficult for me to be able to write, I will go back to that post, re-read it, and change my mind.

Pick And Mix

2008-08-18T05:27:00.004Z

There is a term that is often used disparagingly of people trying to find their spiritual way: they are held to be taking a ‘pick and mix’ approach to religion. But isn’t this what we all do? To take just one example, Cherie Blair is a devout Roman Catholic – yet she admits to using contraception, which contravenes the teaching of the Catholic church. Isn’t this pick-and-mix? Aren't Muslims who drink (or, in the view of some Muslims, who don't drink), pick-and-mix? What about the observant Jewish boy I knew as a teenager who had a secret weakness for pork pies and ham sandwiches?

I think I’m a pick-and-mix atheist, because sometimes I slip into agnosticism. As long-time readers will know, I am a member of the British Humanist Association, which trained and accredited me to do funerals. The BHA has a creed and I accept it, on the whole. But like all creeds – like everything made of words – there is scope for debate. The humanist creed speaks of human experience as part of the basis for understanding and morality. Some people have religious experiences that contribute to the basis for their understanding and morality. Religious experiences are human experiences. Any of us can have them. I remember sitting in a room full of humanists who were contemplating, with considerable alarm, the possibility of a death-bed conversion to religion. It didn't worry me. If it happens, I'll deal with it.

I am glad that some people are making a virtue of their pick-and-mix approach. One such is Pam Vetter, an American celebrant who kindly contacted me a few weeks ago because she wanted to write an article about my blog and my work. (Welcome, American Chronicle readers!) Pam is clearly a perceptive and discerning woman with very good taste in bloggers (ahem). She is also as passionate about producing good quality, memorable, family-owned funerals as I am. But there is one difference between us: she offers hymns and prayers.

I’m beginning to wish I could do this. I know I’m more flexible than some BHA celebrants – we have our fundamentalists who won’t allow even a CD of a hymn tune to be played or a single candle to be lit. I have no problem with either. A quick tale: Fred died at the end of a long and happy life. He was a staunch and lifelong atheist, so I was astonished when his family told me they wanted The Old Rugged Cross to be played during his funeral service. They quickly explained that he had loved the tune, and often whistled it around the house when he was doing odd jobs. We tracked down an instrumental version, beautifully played by a brass band, and everyone was happy. Candles seem to me a lovely symbol of the brightness and brevity of life, and anyway I’m sure candles – or their equivalent – were invented before religion. Another quick tale: at the beginning of Sandra's funeral, her eight grandchildren, aged three to seventeen, each lit a 'memory candle' for Grandma while I drew an analogy about her memory and influence continuing to light their lives in the years ahead. This gave them a role in the ceremony; the seventeen-year-old helped the three-year-old; and the candles burned throughout the service as a constant reminder that a wonderful Grandma would live on through her terrific legacy of eight lovely grandchildren.

So I'm flexible, up to a point. But I would feel hypocritical saying a prayer, and if I tried to lead a congregation in singing a hymn, they would all run screaming from the chapel. Yet this does worry me at times. It’s clearly not right for the clergy to be asked to take a funeral with no religious content. But if I’m not really a conviction atheist, and the most important aspect of my work is to give families as much choice as possible about every aspect of the funeral service I create with them, can I claim an equivalent right? I’m not sure I can.

I get around this, at present, by directing families who want a little religious content in their services to the Unitarians. I like the Unitarians, they’re ace. They don’t start with a religious framework and fight to impose it on people’s lives. They start from where each individual is, and they respect the fact that everyone is on their own spiritual journey (even, I would assert, no doubt to the rage of most of my fellow humanists, those of us who don’t believe in God). They too make a virtue out of pick-and-mix which seems to me a very sensible approach. But they're a bit thin on the ground around here.

So you know what I wish? I wish Pam could come and work on my patch. Then I would know for sure that families who wanted some religion in their funeral would be in very, very good hands.

A New Meme

2008-08-11T08:21:00.004Z

I don’t do memes very often; they can be hard to answer without revealing too much (the old anonymity problem, yawn). But it has just occurred to me that I could start one. And as everyone seems to be in the doldrums at the moment, it might be a Service To Blogging. (Or not, if nobody fancies joining in. Worth a go anyway, I reckon, as I can’t think of anything else to write about.)

So here it is, with my answers: The Funeral Meme.

1. What kind of funeral will you have?

Humanist, i.e. non-religious. Unless my beliefs change before I die, which is always possible.

2. What music would you like at your funeral?

I’ve chosen three pieces. As people are coming in, I’d like an instrumental version of ‘Jesu Joy Of Man’s Desiring’ – it’s a delightful lilting tune and will please the Christian mourners. For the committal, I’d like the ‘Salva Me’ from Verdi’s Requiem, sung in Latin; to my mind, it’s the best musical evocation of people’s bewilderment in the face of death. (Yes, I know; two religious tunes. It’s about the music, OK?) And at the end, ‘Why Worry’ by Dire Straits, which sums it all up really: 'Why worry, there should be laughter after pain, there should be sunshine after rain, these things have always been the same so why worry now?'

3. If you could have anyone to speak your eulogy, who would you choose?

Stephen Fry. I don’t know him; I’ve never met him; I think he’d do a really good job.

4. If you could have anyone to play live music at your funeral, who would it be and what would they play or sing?

I’d have Karine Polwart to sing an unaccompanied lament.

5. Will there be a ‘do’ after your funeral and, if so, where and what kind?

I sincerely hope so. I’d like all my friends and family to get together at my house or a local pub, eat, drink, chat, cry, laugh and generally have a good time.

6. What’s the most unusual funeral wish you’ve ever heard, and did it come true?

A dear friend of mine says that at her committal, she wants everyone to be served with champagne, so they can drink a toast to her accompanied by ‘See What The Boys In The Back Room Will Have’ (scroll down for lyrics). She is, as far as I know, still very much alive, but I hope it comes true because it would suit her perfectly.

So there you are. A new meme. I tag anyone who fancies having a go (do let me know if you do it, though, so I can come and read your answers). If you’re a non-blogging reader, feel free to do yours in the comments box.

Who Am I Again?

2008-08-04T08:59:00.002Z

My phone is refusing to ring.

It's definitely working. I tested it from my mobile this morning.

Work often goes quiet at this time of year. I haven't done a funeral since the week before last, and haven't visited a family for almost three weeks. People are on holiday, too busy having fun to get round to dying. Things will liven up again by the end of September, but, for the moment, I'm at a loose end.

This morning I sat at my desk, chin on hands, feeling bored, willing the phone to ring with a summons to an interesting job. Then I realised I was, effectively, wishing for someone to die. Which doesn't sound like me – or, at least, it doesn't sound like the person I prefer to think of as me. But it was me, evidently.

Who I am is very closely linked with what I do, and when what I do doesn't seem like me, I start feeling more uncertain than usual. I'm a funeral celebrant, but I'm not being one at the moment, so who am I today? I'm a writer, sometimes, but that's not going so well either. It's as if the ground is shifting beneath my feet. Maybe I could see this movement as good, exciting, a chance for new opportunities to emerge. My head is willing to buy into that idea, but as far as my stomach's concerned, it's just something that makes me lurch around feeling slightly sick.

I don't think I'm having a mid-life crisis, because I have no desire whatsoever for a red convertible sports car. So I guess it's just a plain old identity crisis. Which is an odd thing to write about under a pseudonym – and, to be honest, that isn't helping either right now. There are too many disparate bits of me, scattered too widely. I need to gather them in and regroup.