A short version of Jane’s film THE WAITING ROOM was the centre piece of the 8th Annual Conference on Dementia and End of Life organised by The National Council for Palliative Care and the Dying Matters Coalition and held in London on 4th December 2013. Â Â The film is about the time Jane’s Dad spent on a psychiatric ward and was programmed to illustrate the lived experience of people living with dementia – it seems that people were truly shocked by what they saw and we have been humbled (and pleased) by the response to the film.
We have been making The Waiting Room for over five years, long before Josh died. Â Filming started when Jane’s Dad, (Josh’s Grandpa) Gerry went into hospital in 2008. Then aged 92, he had early stage vascular dementia and after her Mum Pat had a stroke and could therefore no longer look after him at home, efforts were made to find a suitable place for him in a local residential home but none were available. So Gerry was admitted to the Ailsa Psychiatric Hospital near Ayr, their home town in Scotland.
This was a far from ideal solution to the problems faced by the family, and with the thought that surely things would improve for both Gerry and Pat, we began to film with them both. As it turned out Jane spent more and more time trying to deal with a system (its called the NHS!) than actually being with her parents as they moved into the final chapters of their lives.  She now sees these as lost years rather than last years.  But  as the dementia progressed to its inevitable end stage, Jane’s efforts to find a more ‘person friendly’ care package, a more stimulating environment,  a more comforting and less intimidating final ‘home’ for her dad,  were mostly in vain. For reasons we believe were the result as much as the lack of care as of the progress of the disease, Gerry’s well being went into steady decline and he never left the hospital.   He died earlier this year and you can see our farewell tribute to him here – FAREWELL GERRY.
FAREWELL GERRY was culled from the many hours of footage we have of Gerry and is a very different film to THE WAITING ROOM which had its first public screening at the Conference for the NCPC/Dying Matters Coalition.   Shown at the start of proceedings, the film quickly became a talking point for the remainder of the day as delegates recognised it as a cautionary tale for a health service faced with an ever increasing ageing population many of who will die with dementia.  You can watch it here.
This version of THE WAITING ROOM is 81/2 minutes long.  It should and could be longer – it should and could be made available as a educational or training resource for all in the caring professions.   But without adequate funding we are not currently in a position to develop the project further.  So …  if you or you know anyone who can help us achieve this goal, please do contact us.
Here’s what people have been saying about THE WAITING ROOM
“amazing man, loved by his family failed by the system “ – Beth Britton @bethyb1886 (Leading Dementia campaigner and blogger)
“harrowing to see footage of a highly intelligent inventor shut in an empty room without stimulation. Â Jane has portrayed a hospital specialist dementia unit but it seems as if there’s no insight into the person they cared for” Â Simon Chapman @SimonSimply (Director of Public Engagement, Â National Council of Palliative Care)
“very moved by Jane Harris’ film about her Dad. Â Reminds us to look for the person, not the disease” Â Emma Hodges @StGilesDCEO (Deputy Chief Executive of St Giles Hospice
“a brilliant film” Â – Professor Alastair Burns (National Clinical Director for Dementia – Dept. of Health)
“a powerful film – No person with dementia should spend four years in hospital” – Sharon Blackburn (Communication Director, Dementia Action Alliance)
Unfortunately we didn’t have the following information at the screening of THE WAITING ROOM at the conference.   We have only just had a reply from the NHS trust for Ayrshire and Arran as to the total cost of Gerry’s care while he was in hospital.   And it is staggering – the cost per day for a patient in an Elderly Mental Health Bed is £408.    So the total costs for the four years that Gerry was in hospital amounts to close on £581,000.  But this is a minimum estimate and does not include the extras for two hip replacements and their aftercare, antipsychotic drugs, and the one to one observation that Gerry required to stop him getting out of his chair.    Compare that with the costs for keeping Jimmy’s mother Emily (of a similar age and with a similar condition – advanced alzheimers dementia) in a private residential home  – this is £650 per week or a possible £135,000 over four years – less than one quarter of the cost of Gerry’s care.   This raises so many questions we can’t go into here but if you’ve watched the film you will know that  this is money not well spent.
Come to the launch of Year Two of the Josh Edmonds Memorial Scheme
at The Spotlight, Â Cirencester College
Monday 9th December 6.30 pm
Honouring the memory of our Josh
Josh (right) at work in the studio at MoS
Josh was a student at Cirencester College and  started his music career on a placement basis with the London based but internationally renowned music venue The Ministry of Sound  and within a couple of years had become a video producer for the club. He worked hard had lots of fun and we were so proud of what he achieved in such a short time.  Before leaving the club he had made over 200 video clips.
Now nearly 3 years on and MoS are honouring Josh’s  memory  for the second time with an annual opportunity for 18 to 25-year-olds in Gloucestershire to win a month’s internship with the company.   Year Two of the scheme will be launched next Monday 8th December at The Spotlight, Cirencester College.   Please join us if you are a student, tutor, head of department, youth leader, musician, or anybody who has an interest in furthering young talent from Gloucestershire – its an opportunity not to be missed.
And of course we already have the experience of an intern to learn from.  Last years successful candidate, Lewis Murphy is our guest speaker at the launch at Cirencester College.  Lewis will describe to the audience  what being the first successful candidate has been like for him.“The people I met and the experiences I had are irreplaceable” he told us “I can now look back at those times and reflect on how much of a career springboard it was by looking at where I am at now.” Lewis, a University of Gloucestershire student until earlier this year, now works for leading drum and bass label, Emcee Recordings.  Lewis will be showing some of his own work at the launch along with a few clips from the Josh Edmonds archive.
Lewis Murphy (left) at MoS
Young people in Gloucestershire will be invited to apply for this unique and prestigious opportunity in the Video and Music industries. Â Â The successful applicant will gain a real insight into the workings of a major music brand, develop their own talent and get the chance to rub shoulders with the big names in popular music.
“Whatever aspect it is that you’re interested in The Josh Edmonds Memorial Scheme is a brilliant way for young talent to gain some experience of the music media industry.  So to anyone who is thinking of applying, just go for it, you’d be a fool not to.“
MoS chief executive Lohan Presencer said: “Josh was a fantastically creative and enthusiastic member of the team at MoS. Hopefully this placement will give someone the same opportunities that Josh had and continue his memory.”
So the launch is on Monday evening 9th December at the Spotlight in Cirencester College. (Soft drinks, nibbles and a bit of alcohol will be served) Â Â Applications for the scheme are open January through February 2014. Â The selection process will take place in March 2014 and the successful candidate will be announced in April.
Farewell Magazine is a quarterly life style mag (death style mag?) recently published and available in all good news agents and on line.   The Winter 2013 edition includes an article about Beyond Goodbye. Is this an indication of how far we have come in the business of ‘coming to terms’ with Josh’s death? Soon after he died and just as we had just as we had published Jimmy’s book Released, we were approached by a number of ‘press outlets’ asking to write up our story.  They weren’t all tacky ‘women’s own’ type mags but even the more dignified requests were something we really couldn’t be bothered with.   Now, nearly three years on, we have become more comfortable with the publicity that has come with the films we have made and the articles we ourselves have written.  In a way, this site Beyond Goodbye, has become a bit more than a memorial to one man, it seems by all accounts to have gathered momentum as an example of a new way of dealing with the aftermath of tragedy.  So while each and every day we still wake up to the terrible news that Josh is dead, our work in being more public in our grief has brought certain compensations.  If it has been difficult for some of our friends to stay alongside us on this journey, there are many out there in the wider world, that know what we are going through and in a way we have become part of a wider community of the bereaved.
Before Josh died, and before we became involved with charities like The Compassionate Friends and Dying Matters, we wouldn’t have given a moments thought to the idea of picking up a mag like “Farewell’ or to peruse it’s contents in search of advice about how best to arrange a funeral.  ‘Excuse me that’s someone else’s story’, I would have said, ‘nothing to do with me.’  Life after all is about living.  Most of us have an inbuilt and necessary fear of death which makes the subject understandably hard to talk about – and those that do are seen as.. well.. morbid.  But now we live with death every day. Joshua’s life and his death are our minute by minute companions.  And it’s not morbid. Despite the hurt, the anguish and constant trawl for some relief, life in a strange way, now has more meaning and more purpose.
So death is now our story and although it still feels odd that someone would want to write it up in a glossy mag, we are I think OK with that.   The article has some familiar pictures of Josh and uses Fred Chance’s brilliant photo of Matara as the backdrop to the front page.   It covers our reasons for doing the funeral our way as well as nice words about Beyond Goodbye, ‘a collection of online ideas that remember Josh … Taken together, its a project of real work and a challenge to traditional introverted expressions of grief and mourning.’
To read the full article click here to download  - Farewell Winter 2013 or go to your local WHSmiths and cough up £3.95.  The article is on Page 41
‘I had no idea how to talk to the bereaved. Until then I’d mostly avoided those who’d lost loved ones. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. In a culture that’s distinctly uncomfortable with pain, this is a safe position for many people. We don’t like to look that kind of loss in the eye for fear it might swallow us.â€
Fiona Hunter and Jude
So writes Jill Stark and the bereaved she is talking about is her oldest friend Fiona Hunter whose 5 year old son Jude died just three hours after being diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension just before Christmas 2011. Jill, is a journalist, and she was preparing to fly back from Australia just having received the news of the little boys death.  On her way she found herself in the self help section of a bookshop searching for ways to support her friend and feeling at a complete loss as to how to respond to her friends grief.    “My impotence was matched only by the abject futility of the titles – When bad things happen to good people, Beyond the broken Heartâ€Â It was she says “like trying to fight a firestorm with a watering canâ€.
And as I continued to read her article (Giving Grief a Voice) I was struck by the way that Jill was prepared to go that extra mile to try and make sense of something so senseless, so unthinkable.  Something which also involved facing her own fears of talking openly about what is everyone’s worst nightmare, the death of a child.
And I know from the nightmare of Josh’s death that when a child dies everything is thrown up in the air – nothing is ever the same again. I will never ‘get over’ or ‘move on’ from Josh’s death, but some of my friends have reacted in ways that suggest they wished I could. Grief taps into emotions and feelings that I never knew existed either for me or my friends. Reading about what grief is like from the perspective of another bereaved parent’s friend, from someone who was, it seemed, prepared to face her own demons is  therapeutic and comforting.  Jill acknowledges her friends pain with an unabashed honesty.   ‘Grief isn’t pretty and it’s rarely quiet.  It can be a skin-scratching evisceration, that rattles through every nerve ending and rasps on each breathe.  Denying it a voice isn’t healthy.  And it’s an insult to those we’ve lost.’
Josh
One friend of mine admitted that for her it was scarey and uncomfortable to talk about Josh. She was afraid of upsetting us and deemed it probably safer to say nothing.  I explained the ‘elephant in the room’ syndrome – when nobody talks about Josh it makes it so much harder for us to relax in social situations. Instead we put on a mask that says ‘I’m OK – please don’t bother yourself with my sadness’. This, it seems, only prolongs the silence. I know that to see someone grieving is not a comfortable sight. It’s unpredictable and raw and I use the mask to hide my pain. I’m sure that in the earlier stages of life after Josh, I must have seemed like an enigma to my friends.  I’ve landed on a strange planet and they no longer recognize me.  But I was seeing them differently as well.
In his new book ‘An Astronauts Guide to Life’,  Chris Hadfield talks about what it was like to see the earth from the moon for the first time. He would, he said, never see the earth in the same way again.  Grief colours your world differently and we are strange to others.   But tiptoeing around the bereaved like they are aliens is not right.
Parents of Jude’s school friends hang their heads when they see his mother Fiona arriving in the playground. ‘I’ve gone from arranging play dates’ she says, ‘to a harbinger of doom, someone who was there just to remind them of their own mortality’.   The fear of saying the wrong thing may well be a natural response when in the company of the bereaved, but it is not at all helpful.  Grief needs to be spoken.  ‘One of the hardest things in the aftermath of Jude’s death’ says Fiona, ‘was the feeling he was being erased. Some people would say anything to avoid talking about him …. (but) to mention his name doesn’t remind me that he died, it lets me know the people remember that he lived.’
Jude
I’m reminded of the early days of racism and disability awareness when instead of bravely addressing the discomfort felt whilst in the presence of black or disabled people there was an expectation that they themselves had to speak up to defend themselves and justify their existence.   Since Josh died I have felt similarly isolated though I don’t think the prejudice is as overt, and it is important to say here that I am neither black nor disabled.   On so many occasions I have longed for someone to speak out on our behalf, to meet us where we are rather than us having to educate or guide others around the new us.
As I wrote this article I thought I’d give it a reality test with one of the many close friends who supported us tirelessly with Josh’s funeral.  Claire Schimmer told me  ‘It’s probably unsurprising that we’re ill-equipped to deal with the consequences of an unexpected death in our own communities. We prefer our death to be Scandinavian noir where the murderer is always brought to justice in the end and we can watch the grief of the parent/spouse/child from a safe distance knowing that its actually only acting  It’s difficult and confusing being with friends who are grieving, not just because of the lack of vocabulary but because, if we’re honest, one of the first thoughts is ‘thank God it wasn’t me’.
Jimmy and I made a conscious decision to speak out and write about what it is to experience the death of a child. While many of our feelings still remain private there is much that we want to be more public about, hence this website.  If sharing means we might ease our own burden, it also might just help others overcome their own fears about untimely death, or any death for that matter.  We might then feel less isolated,
Claire again: ‘I’ve also learned that it’s reasonable to be curious, to ask questions and not feel that somehow the interest is obtrusive or even unhealthy – and that’s the unexpected bit; I feel that what I’ve learned from this hasn’t made me more anxious about death, but rather the opposite. I’m still very glad it wasn’t me, but I don’t feel guilty about that any more, and I understand now that it doesn’t get easier and you don’t move on, but that shouldn’t stop the friendship as it might bring things you otherwise wouldn’t find.’
Jude’s mum Fiona probably puts on a similar mask to mine. She also wishes people wouldn’t misunderstand her sense of being okay. ‘They shouldn’t decide that I’ve moved on, accepted my loss or (god forbid) replaced my precious son. Instead people should know that it’s possible to choose to be okay whilst at the same time living with a broken heart.’
I am changed and in many ways I’m OK with that.  Perhaps it’s the passage of time. My hope is that others will take the risk to find out a bit more about what this change means. As Fiona’s friend Jill Stark has done: ‘I can promise my friend that I will never say “enough now” I will never tire of hearing her talk about Jude and I will continue to remember her crazy-beautiful boy and say his name out loud for as long as I have breath in my body.’
This journey has not been easy for me or for my friends. Many have had to bear witness to my grief and our friendships have been tested but most have survived.
SAY THEIR NAME, the film we made for TCF was up for an award for the Best Internet Bereavement Resource category of  The Good Funeral Awards – and whaddya know – we won it!
Jimmy, Pam St Clement, Jane
Hmmm… Strange trophy perhaps – a minature wicker coffin but given that the event is organised by THE GOOD FUNERAL GUIDE hardly surprising – and its bigger than an Oscar (and lighter than my Bafta!)   In effect The Good Funeral Awards are the annual shindig of what we have come to know as the “deathies’.   In attendance were the great and the good from the world of funeral directors, celebrants, bereavement counsellors, coffin builders and grave diggers – as well as Pam St Clement (whose on screen death as Pat Butcher in East Enders has clearly touched many a heart) was there to dish out the prizes.
Josh’s death is of course why we are here.  If Josh had not died we would not have become involved with The Compassionate Friends, we would not have made their video, and we wouldn’t be standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the most caring, compassionate and enlightened people we have met, because in truth these ‘deathies’ really are such.   No morbid bunch of  funeral stalkers these, more, this is a movement that is in the forefront of  changeing the way we all deal with and talk about death.  It truly is a terrible thing, but in a way it has taken the death of our son for us to really find that degree of self knowledge that allows us to be more accepting of  death and more comfortable talking about it.  To paraphrase one of the delegates Clarissa Tan – recognising “the finality of death is hard, but the uncertainties of life are perhaps even harder” – to talk about death really is to find out more about living.
And thats what we were doing in the run up to the award ceremony, as we joined a dozen or so others in a yurt in the garden of the hotel in Bournemouth. Â Â Have you heard of ‘death cafe’s’? Well this was a ‘death cafe’ and they are springing up all over. Â Â A bit like pop up restaurants but with death on the menu … a freakish, weird thing to do by most peoples standards maybe, but here atmosphere was relaxed, intimate and unafraid – no one blinked and there were no awkward silences when one member announced she had cancer and we told of our loss. Â Â All were equal whatever their story – death as the great leveller!
Death Cafe
Back to SAY THEIR NAME and the awards.  This was a glittering, champagne laden affair taking the form of all such occasions – “the nominees are …. the winner is” etc.  And it didn’t disappoint as we sat nervously clutching each other, ready to be losers but wanting to win.  Ah! the competitive spirit that always trumps even the most sober cause.  Maybe not quite that sober.  Acceptance speech?  Jane was brilliant – no blushes and no gushes – enough said.   But  we can say that representing the film and TCF at the award ceremony was a real honour if only because people  have been so positive about it – as per these quotes
“One of the most moving pieces of film that I’ve seen and utterly deserving of multiple awards in testimony to the powerful truths spoken by the parents we saw.” Fran Hall
“Wow that is brilliant (she says wiping away tears) … Â I hope that I can use this short film in my work. That footage has really helped me especially today since yesterdays funeral of a 15 year old girl so tragically taken is fresh in my thoughts.” ClaireÂ
“Really beautiful work – to showcase such articulate storytelling and promote remembrance.”  Kathryn Edwards
“I was with each parent and sibling, deeply listening to them name and remember their loved one. It’s a good thing, this.” Kate.
I am still in awe of people who meet death everyday in their professional lives and I wonder what draws them to be undertakers, celebrants or soul midwives (a new one this).  I suspect most have had  painful experiences, themselves, but instead of hiding them away, they are using them to help us all confront our deepest fear – not of death but of life.
Thanks for reading
Jimmy
12th September
Jane talks to sculptor, Davina Kemble, about her pebble coffins
More nice news – SAY THEIR NAME has been nominated in the Good Funeral Awards 2013, to be held in Bournemouth on 7th September. Â Â The video, which we made for THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS, is in the running for the Best Internet Bereavement Resource and I have to say we are honoured, excited and encouraged by the recognition it has received.
Now in its second year, The Good Funeral Awards is actually the brainchild of Charles Cowling who writes, promotes and speaks up on everything do with making sure that the funeral you have is the one you want.    As well as being a consumer guide to the Funeral Industry, Cowlings blog and book “The Good Funeral Guide”  is an advocate for independence of mind, spirit and body, especially if its a dead one.    Interestingly, though the awards are primarily about the ‘funeral world’ with other catagories like ‘The best Gravedigger of the Year’, ‘The best Embalmer of the Year’ and the “Eternal Slumber Award for Coffin Supplier of the Year”, they are also shine a significant light on our understanding of death and bereavement in contemporary society.  Its probably true to say that ‘gallows humour’ mixes with serious intent as more than 75 nominees compete for 15 different awards.
This years ceremony will be hosted by Pam St Clement who as many will know starred as Pat Butcher in Eastenders culminating in a brilliant dying scene which touched millions of viewers.
If you haven’t yet watched SAY THEIR NAME you can view it here – SAY THEIR NAME
As we have noted before, we believe the video to be the only one of its kind in this country – made by and for bereaved parents, it gives comfort to the newly bereaved and understanding to their friends and family.
For reviews of the film click  Film reaches out to bereaved parents | Dying Matters – Dying Matters is a broad based national coalition of 30,000 members, which aims to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards dying, death and bereavement.
First off, I’m so sorry about the sudden death of your sweetheart – I do know something of the pain and confusion, the despair and deep anguish you are going through, so I want to send you my own feelings of compassion and love at this time. I haven’t read much of your blog yet but the fact that you are sharing stuff so soon after Claire’s death is, I believe, not just a brave thing but a healing thing too and the hopefully the best way forward. As you say, being public about your grief helps you to feel normal, that you are not alone and from that we can all take huge amounts of comfort.
Our son Joshua died in early 2011 and I too immediately started to write and muse about how my interests in photography could help see me through. I didn’t publish anything at first, but then we started our own website to honour and remember Josh – www.beyondgoodbye.co.uk – and that has led us to get involved with a number of charities dedicated to helping people through grief, and try and get a bit more acceptance in what people describe as our ‘death averse culture’. Have to say it has not been easy, but then it was not really a conscious decision to go ‘public’ with our grief – it just happened cos that’s what we do and we wanted to able able to stay in touch as much as possible with all Josh’s friends – and where better than on-line. The difficult bit has been the way many of our close friends (in the ‘real’ world) seemed to have been scared off but our continual mention of Josh and the public things we have done for him since he died – grief is traditionally seen as a private matter – it does afterall get in the way of life’s day to day business of earning a living, cleaning the car, watching footer, having sex and generally being happy and productive. Or does it? Possibly, but only if you see grief as something in which we shut ourselves away in a darkened room so that we can be miserable all the time. Which of course it is not. Â And that said, two and a half years after Josh died and all those difficult feelings that we and our friends have experienced have now begun to ‘normalise’, I think that by not hiding away (although I still do that a lot of the time) we have been able to face fears (for many the worst fear they could imagine – the death of their own child) by sharing them and in doing so all our lives are enriched – at least I hope so.
So thank you for sharing your grief – its not a shameful thing and these days I believe its not such a difficult thing – the internet has given us such great opportunities in this regard – you have made us feel a bit more normal and I hope you feel the same.
 The wonderful Lewis Murphy, the first candidate to follow in Josh’s footsteps and work as an intern at the Ministry of Sound is coming to the end of his time there.  He’s been writing a blog each day – and its hilarious.  Thanks Lewis and well done.
‘Waking up on a Friday morning with a banging headache and the early signs of flu is not the way anyone would want to start the day, but that is exactly what happened the day of my interview. So I dosed up on ibuprofen and paracetamol and prepared my self for the interview….’
Josh’s desk at MoS – occupied for a while by Lewis
‘…. She had a thick Jamaican accent and with her was her friend who just looked really relaxed and chuckled every now and again. They were such nice and funny people, talking to me loudly not caring what others thought as they casually rolled up a couple of joints in front of me. We rode the train together all the way until they got off the stop before mine …’
‘The thing I’m enjoying most at the moment is working in this friendly environment with good music being played all over the office at different times and hearing the banter and either seeing or hearing the work that other people are doing and being blown away by it’
‘As Steve the station manager went down the list of songs for us to listen to on the massive screen at the end of the table we researched the artists and discussed their ratings in other charts and playlists. On one occasion Steve miss spelt the name of one of the artists and we ended up with crazed looking pictures of Mrs. Bush from George Bushes presidency, if you look at her left eye it does look like she has an evil twitch’
‘… After I’d finished up and started to head back I head a a faint noise over my headphones. I took them off and saw people getting out of their cars and people standing on the side of the road staring. Some man had tried to pull a U turn and plowed into the opposite pavement and into a pole, ripping out the front wheel, suspension and all! No one was hurt but the car was pretty mashed up. A good thing to live by I think is don’t pull a U turn in London… ever’
‘… I carried on sorting the tapes until I came across something that made me stop in my flow of work. A tape titled ‘BTS KID CUDI JOSH TAPE’ This must have been something that Josh had filmed while he was here at MOS. In fact it had suddenly hit me that most of the tapes here were probably filmed by him’
‘Unfortunately being fresh out of university I’m not exactly rolling in it so could not afford to go down to the market to which Steve said, ‘well… sounds like you need a… some kind of a float…. At which point he goes to hand me £10! I could not except that! ‘Do you know how much money that is!?’ I said ‘Yeah it’s £10′ Steve said in his Irish accent with a hit of what are you talking about in his voice. Marco laughed and just said ‘take the money ….’
‘Hot, hungry, thirsty and with music so loud my ears were starting to hurt I slowly became zombified. For 2 hours this dance was played and it was well past my time to take a break but I did not want the show to sound like arse so I stayed on through laughing with the guest and chatting as much as I could muster without letting the groggy heat frustration get the better of my mood …’
‘On the journey home I thought about how incredible had been today and just could not help but smile all the way back! Thinking of my friend Josh Taylor and the strange gifts in a way he has given me and thinking of Josh Edmonds and again the strange gifts in a way he has given me also. I want to do them both proud and make the opportunity’s I get from this internship be lasting and push me forwards into a career that I enjoy and love doing! So thank you guys for all you’ve done with out even knowing.’
That sleepy picture – the one that Josh used for his business card – the one that has become such a poignant reminder of who Josh was for us. Â We take it everywhere we go and we took it with us to Vietnam and Cambodia.
It’s a photo of Josh pretending to be asleep. Â He is not really asleep, he has closed is eyes on my request and in a sense I am in that picture too. Â You can’t see me but I am there – as a father and as a photographer, two roles, two identities that I cannot imagine being without. Â Â The photo was taken as a joke really. Â I was in the middle of a project taking photographs of people, most of them random strangers I met in the street – but with their eyes closed – and one day, on a rare visit to London, we decided on the spur of the moment to do one of Josh. Â Â We were with his brother Joe having a drink on the South Bank – that is Joes hand Josh is leaning against. Â Â IÂ thought no more of it until Josh turned up a few weeks later showing us the design for his business card with ‘that sleepy picture’ as the background. Â It reminded me of the time many many years ago when my father took some of my photos and made some water colours from them. Â Â I felt as if there could be no nicer a tribute to my skills and the way I like to see the world. Â We all like recognition from a parent, do we not. Â Well ditto in reverse with Josh – I had no idea he thought much at all about my ideas as a photographer (and maybe he didn’t) but to follow them through as a way of promoting his own work (he worked as a video producer for the Ministry of Sound) was very very gratifying.
There is so much in that photograph for me and I could go on for hours about what it meant then and what has come to mean since Josh died.  Of the moment we took it I recall being slightly surprised at how both brothers were happy to join in with my weird ideas.  But I also I remember how little I was seeing of Josh since he moved to London and how I would savour every moment with him; and I remember how much he had matured since he’d left home and how much I valued his easy unhurried attitude to life.  As with all photographs of loved ones who have died there is a terrible tension between that moment of their aliveness at the time the picture was taken and the photographs ability to live on beyond their death as a constant reminder  of their absence. There is both pain and joy co-existing in a way that has no equivalent. Particularly so with this image of a boy pretending sleep, the more poignant now depicting as it does, a young man in perpetual sleep.
For this and many reasons then, the photograph  now represents a real and continuing bond between the two of us.  Unable now to take any further photographs of Joshua I have reworked it in numerous ways since Josh died  (see this gallery here ) and from time to time, I take it out of my wallet, place it on a hillside or on a gatepost, or simply hold it in view and photograph it.   Somewhere in all this is the idea that if we have a record of Josh on our travels, its proof that we haven’t forgotten him – it is one of the many foolish ways we have of staying in touch with him.
Josh’s brother Joe – May 2013Josh’s Mum, Jane – May 2013
This is Halong Bay, a four hour drive from Hanoi and one of Vietnam’s foremost travel destinations. Â Â We wanted to go there, one because it is an amazing sight, two because you get to stay over night on a luxurious junk, but three because it was one of the places we knew Josh had been. Â Â And we knew he been there because we have the photographs to prove it.
Josh (3rd from left) with friends at Halong Bay
Josh had traveled to South East Asia on his own but had met these young men in Laos and they rendezvoused again in Hanoi making plans to ride south on motor bikes. Â Of the five friends pictured here, Dominique and Don (to Josh’s right) and Jesse (second from right) would be with him at the time of the accident. Â They are the ones who sent us all the photos we have of Josh from his time in Vietnam. Â Â They are the sort of photographs you would expect from a young man traveling the world, meeting new friends, seeing new places, and wanting to send a message back home – here’s me over there, having a brilliant time, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.
But if they are the sort of photos any of us might take as a momento of our travels, as often as not, they aren’t photographs of the actual journey or adventure, or of the variety of moods or the emotions that would accompany it. More often they are of the moments between the highs and the lows, constructed to the give an impression rather than a record of a good time.  We take time out of whatever it is that we are doing, specifically to pose with thumbs aloft, or to gather together in a group and smile for the camera or in our case, to pose with our photo of Josh.  And for good reason, we are there for the adventure after all not to make photographs of it.  Or are we?  Is it possible that these days, our travels and our adventures have no validity and possible then no value, unless we photograph them?  As a friend mentioned the other day, they confer on us ‘bragging rights’ like stamps in a passport.  But it  is the one sure way we can prove we were actually there and I know that without these photos (and all the photos we have of Josh) we would be far more lost on our own journey and our own purpose of keeping his spirit alive.
Imagine that we didn’t have a single photograph to remember him by.  Not one. Not even as a baby or a little boy growing up. How would that be?  Would we forget what he looked like?  Did he have short hair or long hair?  Did dimples appear everytime he smiled?  Was that really a man’s beard or still the down of youth?   And without his likeness in a photograph, how long would it be before we forget him altogether?    But even if the power of his likeness is overwhelming, does the fact that these are staged pictures, mean that we might lose too soon the sense of who Josh was rather than what Josh looked like.   We have no pictures of Josh climbing the steps to that viewing platform or lugging his backpack on board the boat.  None of the stuff that would tell us more of how he was possibly feeling.  We have no more than the photographic evidence of his presence in Vietnam and they cannot really tell us how confident he was with these new friends; was he nervous about the bikes they had bought, weren’t they just a bit pissed off with cold and the rain.  He is not here now to tell the stories behind the photos and without his voice there is no anchor to secure what little we do know of his adventures.  He had told us on the phone just how cold the north of Vietnam was in winter time, how pleased he was to buy a replica North Face jacket at half the normal price, but  we must use our own imagination to complete a narrative  of their trip first to Halong Bay and then south on the Ho Chi Minh Highway.
We don’t know how long Josh spent on Halong Bay.  Given the price and the season we suspect his was a day trip.  We were visiting in summer and were able to make slightly more of it  spending one night on the boat, visiting some caves, eating some fine food and diving in for a swim in the rain.  Unlike January when Josh was here, the summer heat is oppressive.  It is also the start of the rainy season and when it rains, it rains.  It rained all night long and into the morning by which time we had had enough floating luxury.
Crew members – late afternoon Halong BayCrew members – early morning Halong BayJoe – Early morning Halong Bay
On our return to Hanoi, we decided to mark Josh’s presence there by scattering some of his ashes in Hoan Kiem Lake.   Translated this means The Lake of the Returned Sword after the legend in which the then 14c King was ordered by a holy turtle to return the sword that had helped him defeat the Chinese invaders.   The turtle’s descendent is said still to live in the lake and like (or maybe unlike) the Loch Ness Monster, there have been numerous ‘sightings’. To the north of the lake is a small island on which stands the Ngoc Son Temple connected to the shore by a pretty bridge.  It was here we felt most appropriate to stand again for a moment, to remember Josh, and to feel a little more connected not just to him but also to the Buddhist traditions that are everywhere part of Vietnamese life.  Josh of course was not a Buddhist and nor are we, but being in a country where Buddhism is so strong helped us to understand and to be more comfortable with his death.  Remembering and honouring those who have died is such an ordinary part of everyday life in here, that our little ritual, public as it was, provoked little interest with passers by. It was hard to feel grievous, or even that sad. Such has been the welcome we have received in Vietnam. it wouldn’t be until our return home, that I would again feel the full force of Josh’s death, the sharp ache of my boy’s total and forever absence.
To give our ceremony more substance, we again drew on the power of Josh’s photo. We tore the pictures of him from one of the Order of Ceremonies we had used for his funeral and watched as they drifted down in swirly gig fashion to float on the surface. Â If there had been a current no doubt we would’ve rushed to the other side of the bridge and wait for them to appear as they continued their journey downstream. Â As it was the ripples on the lake gradually softened these shreds of a life, and Joshua’s image slowly sank beneath the surface and disappeared from view. Â At the same time we let his ashes trickle through our fingers and into a slight breeze that had quietly begun to stroke the water.
How many times in the last two and a half years have we said goodbye to Josh?  Somehow it did feel easier this time. Now that we have witnessed the place where he died, I think we are more secure to let him go. Now that we have found a tradition that allows the dead to continue living without embarrassment, we are more comfortable with the pain of our loss. Now that we have scattered a small part of him  in a strange land we are more able to nurture our memories and to construct anew our own special rituals.  And as Josh and his death find their place in  our own family mythology, so perhaps, we can accept them as a more natural part of the human condition, part of that continuum of stories and legends and narratives that we all need in order to make sense of our lives, whatever our culture.
There was,however, no sign of that elusive  turtle.
From this moment, we would leave Josh’s card along with others’ offerings and gifts at shrines and temples all across Vietnam and Cambodia.   Buddhism has granted us a gift, and even if we don’t share a belief in an afterlife, the opportunity to borrow from other traditions and other customs has been (excuse the pun) a  “godsend”.   Because of Josh and his travels, we have been able to reflect on the many ways in which people find a connection with in an inner spirit world, to wonder at the power of collective imagination, and to discover how it really is possible to live with death in your life.   Being human has come to mean something so much more since Josh died.
Standing as it does in the centre of Vietnam’s capital city, the Ngoc Son Temple is as much a tourist attraction as it is a religious venue.  And as tourist are, so tourists will be.  Just inside the front door, sat an elderly man earning a living as a scribe; selling his skills to worshippers and visitors alike.   For five dollars we commissioned this beautiful example of calligraphy – we chose the characters with care but I’m afraid I have now forgotten what they mean.
The next day Joe had to fly back home.  Jane, Rosa and I flew to Siem Reap in northern Cambodia. There was of course sadness in our parting as well as a certain anxiety that has become part of the baggage of our family life whenever we, as we must, go our separate ways.  To let go of the sight of each other has and, I suspect, always will be much more of a wrench since Josh died.
Josh’s plans once he had traveled through Vietnam, was to continue on to Cambodia, back to Thailand and then on to Nepal.  Our two weeks in Cambodia represented that part of of his trip he was unable to do.  We visited the temples of the Angkor Archaelogical Park and then travelled south to Kampot on the coast and the capital Phnom Penh.  There follows, as a conclusion to this post, a selection of photos of scenes and people we met during our time in Cambodia.   I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  Since a young boy I have been drawn to the magic of photography.   Hyperreal and pretending veracity it is, I think, the most surreal of artforms.    A photograph has the unique ability to capture life, collapsing it into a single moment, while at the same time casting a spell that will outlive us all.  Photographs can tell big stories and little stories but  always from the past.   A photograph always was, though it alludes to being now.  It can never be the future yet it breathes with possibility.   In a sense then photographs defy time itself and in a sense, you could say that  photography is always in ‘Joshua’ time.
Look in any travel guide for Cambodia and you can see fantastic photographs of the temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, Bayon etc.  Recognised as one of the seven wonders of the world, they are part of a huge area that was once the centre of the Khmer Republic (9th to 15th c).  This was a period of great prosperity but also of continual change, politically and spiritually, with Buddhism and Hinduism alternating as the predominant  religion.  The ruins are covered with carvings and reliefs depicting various myths, legends and bits of propaganda.  Highly symbolic and full of narrative they read like a storyboard for an epic Hollywood blockbuster and they must have expected to be seen as such.   Not unlike photographs they are still images that have outlived both their makers and their subjects.
As I wandered around the grounds of Baphuon, this butterfly settled on my hand. Â I know many people who would say that this was a little bit of Josh’s spirit visiting me for a while. Â Well maybe, but probably not. Â And actually it matters not because in that moment I could believe that too; for the comfort it brought, Â and the stillness it represented. Â And it hasn’t been the first time I have been seduced into relinquishing my disbelief in some kind of afterlife; Â the tiny green frog that appear at the foot of Josh’s tree on the day we spread his ashes there; the crow that sat and watced as I ate my sandwich in a motorway service area on the M6; Â a white butterfly that accompanied us as we walked to the hill village of Tiglio near Barga in Italy. Â This little butterfly stayed with me for a good half an hour, occasionally flying off to circle around me and land again. Â Long enough for me to take a few snaps so I could share the experience, authenticate it, tell stories about it – to ‘brag’ about it.
As tourists (as opposed to travelers) it is difficult to engage properly with the history we are walking through, but we do love to brag about our visits to historical sites and monuments. Â All the more so now that we can achieve this within an instant. Modern technology has given us license to record our presence ‘in’ history, but often only to the extent that we agree with its potential to make it and us into commodities. Â Â In many ways we have sacrificed who we really are and where we come from, to a generic and ubiquitous ‘facebook’ image that does no justice at all to the moment or the place.
5 am – sunrise – Angkor WatBayon Temple – 1190 ADAgkor Wat – central courtyardEast Mebon TempleTourist police – Preah Khan TempleRelief Carvings 12 c – Digital Montage 21 c
In common with many cultures, I suspect that I have an unconscious wish to believe that Josh is not really dead, merely sleeping – sometimes I can imagine him opening his eyes any moment now, if only to wink at me. Â Â In any case, I have found that my images of people asleep, while the world continues around them, speak to that sense of ambiguity we have between sleep and death.
East Mebon – middayAngkor Thom – middayBoat Journey to Koh Rong Samloem – late afternoonTuol Sleng Genocide Museum – early morning
We are grateful that Josh did not die of hunger or violence, from hatred or in war.  In the late seventies, during the time of the Khmer Rouge, over one million Cambodians including many children did suffer such a fate.  (this actually represents 1 in 8 of the total population).   It was a humbling experience to visit  Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Memorial (one of roughly a hundred ‘killing fields’) near the capital Phnom Penh.   Most haunting are the thousands of photographic portraits that line the walls of the Museum, originally the Tuol Svay Pray High School which was turned into a torture, interrogation and execution centre by hardliners of the Khmer Rouge.   Of the 14,000 people known to have entered only seven have survived.  The vast majority were carefully photographed before being brutally tortured and forced to confess their ‘crimes’.   Inevitably we will draw a comparison between our tragedy (a single personal death) and the horrors of this mass killing.  Not all, but most of these portraits are nameless, their anonymity to a certain extent, protecting us from their real lives, and their real deaths.  This is forensic photography at it’s most clinical but also at it’s most revealing.  Look at that mother and child, she will know they are both soon to die.  And rows upon rows of children and young adults staring forever long past their execution date, maybe the only photographs of them that survive.  See how fortunate we are to have so many photos of our Joshua – particularly the one in which he is feigning sleep.
Tuol Sleng Genocide MuseumTuol Sleng Genocide MuseumSchool visit – Tuol Sleng Genocide MuseumChoeung Ek Memorial StupaStation 12 – Choeung Ek Memorial perimeter fenceFamily selling trinkets – Choeung Ek Memorial perimeter fence.The ‘killing tree’ against which babies and children were  smashed to death.
Cambodia is now a young country. Â 96% of its population is under 60 and only a very few remember the civil war at all. Â The following photographs are the result of mostly very brief encounters. Â As portraits they too hide real identities, though their very anonymity may help us connect to a common humanity in which life and death can be, should be such an ordinary events.
Sala Baï|Cambodia|Siem Reap  - The nicest hotel in Siem Reap,  and a school for young Cambodians from underprivileged backgrounds looking to work in the hospitality trades
We’ve done it.  We’ve been to Vu Quang where you died in the middle of the road.   It feels nearly as hard to say that as when we first heard the news of your death. But it is real, just as your death is real so we really have been to see the place where you died and to meet some of the people who were there at the time.   In a sense these are the facts, what we make of them, how we remember them, what stories we tell around them and where we put them in the timescale of our own lives is another matter.
Our day began on the morning after the night train from Hoi An to Vinh.  Actually this final part of our ‘pilgrimage’ to see where you took your last breath really started as we boarded the train with that sense that here we are at last; after more than two years we will soon be connecting with you in a way that we never wished we’d have to.
The train is cramped, crowded and noisy and we get very little sleep but as the morning light comes up, we now know that we are in Ha Tinh province, up until now only a name on a map, a name in a police report.  We are glued to the window as the countryside lumbers past, spellbound by the sheer number of lotus flowers and paddy fields all with peasants in conical hats working the land.  Our first opportunity to soak up the atmosphere of rural Vietnam.
Next door to us is a family of 10 happily cramped in to their tiny compartment. Their two youngest boys have spent much of the journey (irritatingly and charmingly) tapping on our window and pressing their noses against the glass and then running off down the corridor chasing a tennis ball. Squeezing past them is the steward and his trolley offering up rice and soup for breakfast which we decline politely. The last timewe were on such a sleeper we were on our way to Italy. You were eight and Rosa was three. We were going to  spend a week with Sam and Doone and their Mum Adrienne. Remember the dead snake they were so keen to show us as soon as we arrived. To feel you so close yet to know you couldn’t be further away is so hard. and we wish with all our heart we could hug you one last time.
We are met at Vinh railway station by Uoc, the Vietnamese secondary school teacher who helped your friends after the accident.  He is one of very few fluent English speakers in this remote part of Vietnam. Josh, we want you know this about Uoc; he is a complete LEG-END. One of the kindest, most thoughtful people we have ever met. Before our trip, and when first we contacted the British Embassy in Hanoi we asked how we could find the man who was called out from his class to translate and help with the police reports. We received an email almost by return from Uoc himself – it was as if he’d been waiting for us to find him.  Now as we step of the train (which is running nearly and hour late) he is there to greet us.  He has spotted us immediately (mind you, we are pretty easy to identify as the only white people on the platform) and guides us to a food stall under some trees near the taxi rank. Uoc has the look of a young boy, with wide eyes that are hungry for knowledge and as we sit drinking sweet cold sugar cane juice, he begins to tell us what happened when he arrived at the scene of your accident. But it is all too much too soon. We have only just stepped off the train and we need to adjust a little more to being in the presence of the man who would’ve seen your body lying in the road. The enormity of what lies ahead for us, is, we realize, only now beginning to sink in.
Main street in Huong Son
We arrive at Uoc’s home town Huong Son after a two hour dusty car ride through countryside that we imagine you too would have been familiar with.   Not that many cars on the road but so many motorbikes, so many trucks and buses, all with horns blaring, weaving through potholes, overtaking, undertaking, this side, which side of the road, all avoiding each other and all surviving, all somehow staying alive to do the same tomorrow.   It is midday and Uoc takes us for lunch. Huong Son is not the sort of place for restaurant so you get and you eat what you’re given. Soup, noodles, pigs foot, some spring rolls (as you will know you get spring rolls of varying quality everywhere in Vietnam) and some strange pickled berry things that are common fare for the indigenous peoples from the hills not far from here – (not that nice!)
Huong Son buzzes with life but it is far from the tourist trail and the rooms in the hotel Uoc has booked for us are dark and decrepid; a Turkish jail would have more charm. Very basic really, particularly after the luxury of  the house in Hoi An but again the sort of place you would’ve taken it in your stride – (note to selves – must look up that footage you took of deciding who should get the beds by playing paper/rock/scissors – you lost we think).  But Uoc has planned everything for us with real sensitivity and he wants us to be fully rested before he takes us to Vu Quang.  Jimmy and Joe doze, Jane stays awake.  It is late afternoon when Uoc comes back to collect us.
Vu Quang and the moment on Ho Chi Minh highway where you swerved to avoid an old man walking his bike up the hill, is a short half hour journey away. Â In the car with us are Uoc, his sister and his two year old baby daughter Sami who bounces around between front and back seat. There is something normalising about them being there. For them just another ordinary day out. Rosa points out Vietnam is so spiritual there is room for both life and death here.
We are now traveling down the same road you and your friends were on two years ago and we can all sense the exhilaration and the real fun you would be having on your motorbikes as the countryside, this beautiful countryside sped past. The road rises and falls over a gently undulating landscape of forest and farmland both meeting the roadside as abruptly as past meeting the present.  The driver narrowly misses a water buffalo which has decided to resist its owners attempts to prevent it taking a shit in the middle of the highway.
A mile or so later we begin to recognize the landscape from the photos of the area we have seen on Google Maps. The road divides into a dual carriage way and the line of lampposts on the central island stretch into the distance. The driver slows and pulls over to the side as we approach what looks like a roadside police check and our first thought is we have been booked for speeding. But Uoc has arranged for us to meet the cop who attended the scene of your accident. This is amazing. Uoc really has thought of everything to make this journey of ours as meaningful as possible. The policeman looks at Joe and then at Rosa saying they must be your brother and sister as they look so much like you.  He then follows on his bike and a couple of miles later we again pull over to the side.
We are here. The heat blasts us as we step out of the car. (All new cars in Vietnam have air-con – but we guess you know that!) It’s like walking into a wall of solid hot air but we also have a very real sense that we are stepping through a curtain of time, to a place where time itself no longer has the power to order our lives. The early evening sun throws long shadows as we clamber out onto the tarmac. We are a now family of five again, together in spirit and bound by love and our completeness spreads out across the hard gritty surface with an unexpected and soothing calm. Here at the place of your death we can feel the chains of mourning beginning to loosen just a little. At first there is nothing to say. Then our wondering becomes wandering and silently we begin to explore the scene, each our own archeologist superimposing previous imaginings onto this very real, this very actual roadside .   When did we-five become we-four?  How did five become four? Why, oh why did we lose you?  In some ways we already know the answers to these questions so what we learn here is confirmation not of the facts of your death but a sort of joining together of our own stories – stories that were ‘then’ becoming much more stories that are ‘now’, and stories we can now perhaps stitch together into the fabric of what has to be – our lives continuing on while yours does not.
A constant stream of dumper trucks labours up the hill from the nearby quarry.  Past them and on either side flow motorbikes with a variety of loads, hay bales, water canisters, mattresses.  Did you see them like we see them now? A farmer harnesses an ox to his cart and leads it across the road oblivious of the traffic. Did you notice him? Somewhere behind a gateway a dog barks.  Did you hear it? And did you see, did you sense, were you aware of the people rushing to the roadside as you fell?  Because Josh, just as two years ago when they came to witness something out of the ordinary on this unremarkable stretch of the Ho Chi Minh Highway, so now they are gathering to watch and observe us, a party of Europeans with their cameras and their sunburn and their somber looks. There seems to be  something vaguely amusing in this spectacle until Uoc explains our presence. He thinks he has discovered someone who actually saw your accident: someone who then explains at length the events of that day. The crowd assembles while we wait for the translation, but it turns out he is only a friend of the person who saw it.  As would happen anywhere, everybody wants a piece of the action,  a claim on the tale to be told; especially when death is one of the players. This is of no consequence. It is clear that all the stories of that terrible day do tally and we are content just hear the sound of voices and be in the presence of strangers that have also been marked by your death.
And Josh, they have been marked and they do remember.   On 16th January each year since, a small shrine appears by this roadside. Wherever we have gone in Vietnam, people remember their dead by bringing offerings, (you will like this Josh) of sweets, beer, chocolates, fruit and cake! – and of course incense. Uoc says he too comes here on that day bringing as he does today a box of cakes. We begin to prepare our own shrine for you. We have brought a few momentos; some photos, one of your business cards, a Ministry of Sound CD, a card from the Gales, a string of shells that Hollie and Charlie have made. One of the villagers runs over with an old yogurt pot filled with sand. This is to place our incense sticks and at first he wants to put it in the middle of the road, on the actual spot where you lost your life. Others are walking out into the highway to debate the point. Is it here, no more likely it is there, perhaps it was here; we can see them becoming quite troubled in their need to get it right.  Would you know, would you care?
In the end we call them back to the verge and the yogurt pot finds what feels like its rightful place under the safety barrier. Uoc leads our little ritual and lights the incense sticks which we take turns to set in the sand. This is our biggest moment and it is not without tears –  and a long, long group hug. In the purest and simplest way possible we are honouring you and we are remembering you with a small ceremony that is and will remain as important to us as your funeral.  But this time we are borrowing from another culture and another set of beliefs where people are expected to live on, to be reincarnated, where karma is of utmost importance to life and death, and where the spirit of ones ancestors have a sacred place at the heart of every home to be looked after and revered for all time.  80% of Vietnamese are Buddhists and practicing or not there isn’t a house in this country where the first thing you see as you enter is a shrine to the departed.
Uoc, his sister, and 2 year old and the policeman are squatting by the roadside. They are watching Joe as he ties some Tibetan prayer flags onto a lamppost (another gift from the Gales). Below it he scratches your name. Rosa scratches a kiss.  Uoc promises that he will continue to come here every year on January 16th – and we believe him – absolutely.  ‘This is’ he says ‘your day of the dead’. We are not Buddhists and we don’t believe in life after death, but what we did last Monday was deeply affecting.  We will carry this moment and make it part of our goodbye to you… our forever.
With so much love
Mum and Dad
Uoc is standing next to Jane – the policeman who attended the scene is in the middle
Ps – later that evening Uoc invited us around to his house for dinner. Â Afterwards some of his students came round eager to practice their English. Â Joe was more than happy to oblige with an impromptu evening class.
Uoc and his wife and baby are standing next to Joe – his grandmother seated next to Jimmy (recently renamed ‘the happy buddha!)
Now in its second year, The Good Funeral Awards is actually the brainchild of Charles Cowling who writes, promotes and speaks up on everything do with making sure that the funeral you have is the one you want.    As well as being a consumer guide to the Funeral Industry, Cowlings blog and book “The Good Funeral Guide”  is an advocate for independence of mind, spirit and body, especially if its a dead one.    Interestingly, though the awards are primarily about the ‘funeral world’ with other catagories like ‘The best Gravedigger of the Year’, ‘The best Embalmer of the Year’ and the “Eternal Slumber Award for Coffin Supplier of the Year”, they are also shine a significant light on our understanding of death and 
bereavement in contemporary society. Â Its probably true to say that ‘gallows humour’ mixes with serious intent as more than 75 nominees compete for 15 different awards.
