There’s always a story behind why we do the work we do. Especially those of us who work in vocational roles that feel more like a ‘calling’ than a ‘job’. So this is my story…….. Joy Neal, holding a print which says 'choose joy' Back in 2016 I met a wild woman. She was my first and only Instagram friend who became an IRL friend. She’d just moved to Kent and messaged me to say “I don’t know anyone here – do you want to hang out?” We bonded over a love of beaches and VW camper vans, and the...

"Should I bring my children to the funeral?" is a question that I get asked a lot when I meet with people to plan funerals. As a funeral celebrant I spend a lot of time talking about death and dying. But I am well aware that in our modern secular British culture many people have become very disconnected from death. Over the last century, we have ‘outsourced’ most aspects of death, dying and care of the dead to industry professionals. As adults many of us lack the language and confidence to...

‘Döstädning’ is the Swedish art of ‘Death Cleaning’….. And it’s not as morbid as it sounds, according to the author Margareta Magnusson...