Agony Aunt: My Mum Wants to Steal Her Ex-Boyfriend’s Ashes Dear Prudence, Question: My mum’s first love died recently. The plan for his remains is for them to be cremated and then for his current wife to keep them in an urn. My mum wants to take some of his ashes from the urn and…
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Exhumation of Ashes, Rounders and Drug Dealing
If you have buried ashes and you want to move them it can be difficult if not impossible, particularly if they the ground they are buried in has on blessed (consecrated ground). In which case it is up to the Church of England’s court to decide whether they can be removed. And they don’t like…
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Woman sunbathes in the middle of a Scattering Ashes Ceremony
This image surprised and saddened me. It appeared on the website Reddit and it shows a woman sunbathing in the middle of an ash scattering ceremony. The story comes from Hungary, the son had started to clear a space of debris etc in preparation for the ashes ceremony early that morning, as it was his…
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Ashes Jewellery – Why does it help us grieve?
Losing someone you love is difficult, most of want a connection to that special person. The question is how to make that connection, that memory bond, so it is not surprising to me that funeral or mourning jewellery (ashes jewellery as we think of it now), is now a popular choice. Mourning Jewellery has been…
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Swaminarayan Hindu leaders want a special place for scattering ashes on the shores of Lake Windermere
Hindu Ashes Lake Windermere Lake Windermere is a special place to scatter ashes of a loved one. And it has become an important one for the members of the Swaminarayan sect. The sect is a rapidly growing branch of Hinduism which is popular in the western world. Why is Lake Windermere important for Hindus? Lake…
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Instagram, Tina Turner and Scattering her sons ashes
The musical icon Tina Turner has recently (28 July 2018) scattered the ashes her son at sea off the coast of California (USA). Very sad, her son apparently took his own life earlier in the month. How did she let people know? Instagram, (see picture below) adding the following comment: “My saddest moment as a…
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Have I been wrong about Resomation / Alkaline Hydrolysis
Burial and Cremation are the time-honoured ways to dispose of a body, since prehistoric times cultures have been either been burning or burying them (some have been leaving them on the top of mountains for the vultures – but let’s not go there). Well there /is a new kid on the block – Alkaline Hydrolysis…
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So what are ashes worth? Morton hall case settled out of court
One thing we constantly hear is ashes are “Priceless”. But money is money and when the solicitors get involved the only language is hard cash. The Scottish Morton hall scandal has been widely reported: the ashes of stillborn or very young children were not returned to the parents, they were told there were not any…
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The Facebook generation has no problem with the ashes of a former spouse
You may think that the urn or cremation jewellery of a former spouse may freak-out prospective new partners, and they would want the widow or widower to removal all traces of a former partner. Not so. Respondents on Facebook survey conducted by OneWorld Memorials shows just the opposite in fact. In their survey: Love in…
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Choose to inter ashes at a family grave, but whose family?
Cremation is the common choice in the UK and becoming so in Canada and the US, therefore you can fit more ash caskets onto a family plot. But whose family? I came across an interesting think piece by Ken Gallinger in the Toronto Star about where you choose to inter your ashes. Ken’s mum is…
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The changing trends towards cremation in the USA
Here is an interesting article from USA Today which has looked at changing trends in death rituals in the US and greater adoption of cremation. The article points to six noticeable changes in culture: More people are personalising cremation The articles points to the fact that there is greater choice out there for people to…
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Bremen is the first state in Germany to allow the scattering of ashes
Bremen, the smallest state in Germany, has voted to allow the scattering of ashes. To be honest I knew the name, but I was not aware where it was – and it is small, really small in fact it is two cities that are separated by the larger state of Lower Saxony. You might…
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Utah Veterans have a new columbarium and scattering site
Military veterans form the US state of Utah have had their cemetery facilities enhanced and improved. The US Department for Veteran Affairs awarded a grant of $4.5million for improvement to the Utah Veterans Cemetery & Memorial Park in Bluffdale, Utah. The cemetery now includes a new columbarium and a garden for scattering ashes, with…
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Keeping ashes in a Columbarium: what are they, why use them and what do they cost.
A columbarium is a wall with cavities designed to hold cremation urns or cinerary urns. Have look at the picture above, they are usually made of stone such as granite and each niche can hold a number of cremation urns (up to about 4). The niche faceplate usually has an inscription engraved upon it.…
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Even TripAdvisor is joining in!
Well sort of, I came across someone last week asking for tips for a location to scatter their mothers ashes “Good place on Lewis to scatter ashes My mother sadly passed away in October and the family is hoping to have a get-together next July to commemorate her life and scatter her ashes in…
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Cremation over takes burial in Australia
Okay I can’t speak for the whole country as this article comes from the Brisbane area. So I am going to generalise and say without any statistical rigor that this is the trend across the country. So what do they say is causing it? They say – Religion, space and economic rationalisation In…
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Cremation Tourism: Germans travel Holland to avoid cost and red tape!
The thing about cremation is that it is not the end of the journey; it would appear that people don’t consider the crematoria to be the final resting place. Why would you need a connection with where you are cremated – it is the cremation ashes and where they reside that represents us. So…
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Theft of an Cremation Urn: what a crime?!
Theft of an Urn Every week I have a look through material that appears on the Web looking for stories and developments in societies relationship with cremation ashes and memorialisation. And every week I discount at least two reports of heinous thefts of urns and caskets from grieving relatives. It actually happened to a…
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Cremated ashes down the gutter
In America the family of a murdered Portuguese journalist followed the dead man’s wishes and tipped his cremated remains down the subway grate in Times Square. There is no reason given as to why Carlos Castro wished to be memorialised in this why just that the family made a hasty exit after the deed. It seems…
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Promession the alternative to cremation?
There are a few alternatives to burial and cremation, but let us stick with the ones that are in the same arena. Promession ever heard of it? When I say arena I mean in the sense you get an ash like residual to bury. However it is at the opposite end of the spectrum…
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Cremation trends odd geographic distribution
I am going to generalise, sorry, but I think you will see why. And I think that you will find this is interesting… In Europe cremation is popular in some parts and not so in others – basically the highest numbers are NW Europe, Britain and Scandinavia then they decrease the more South &…
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Raoul Moat’s ashes
The family of the gunman Raoul Moat, want his ashes to be scattered near where he killed himself on the riverbank in Rothbury. However the locals see things different and have no desire to be associated with the man and don’t want their village to attract those wishing to memorialise Mr Moat or those…
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Society’s attitudes to memorialistion in church
We are told our society is becoming less religious, it appears there is often a grating between cultures when it comes to remembering a secular person in a religious establishment. The vicar or priest may be called upon to speak about a loved one – someone they may not have known. And it may…
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Where have all the ashes gone? Changing social trends for cremation ashes in the UK
Here is a superb article from the Guardian written by Emma Cook concerning a study from 2006 entitled – Where have all the ashes gone? You may not be able to see them but they are all around us – dispersed upon the remote peaks of Snowdon and Ben Nevis, scattered behind trees in…
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