Growing Up “On The Farm” If, with retrospect, I could choose a childhood for myself I would choose exactly the childhood I was privileged to enjoy: that of growing up on our family farm in Tholthorpe. It was amazing. Not only did it shape my whole life in a way…
The following is a poem, written by The Compassionate Friends (TCF) founder Joe Lawley: The Gift I have a gift. I did not want this gift, it meant suffering and pain. The pain came because of love. A love which had manifested itself in a child. The child brought…
When you suffer the loss of a loved one the array of things you need to do can be totally overwhelming, from the moment they take their last breath and you find yourself thrust into collecting their death certificate and having to register their death to the minute they are…
42 – according to Douglas Adams “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” is the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”, a sentiment Dave Briscoe would agree with – so much so his wife, Daphne, had it engraved on his headstone when he died. The headstone is…
Happiness and Singing Happiness was at the top of the agenda whenever Ernest “Ernie” Pace was around. He was known for two things: making those around him laugh and singing. Not just any old song but one song in particular: Dean Martin’s version of “Volare”. Originally written all in Italian it was…
One of only two privately owned Victorian cemeteries in the UK today, York Cemetery dates back to 1837. Far from being a sad place where people come to mourn the dead, it is an oasis of peaceful serenity and quite unique beauty. Here the old sits alongside the new and…
If ever a picture painted a thousand words then it must be one of the following, taken in York Cemetery this week. What the photos reflect is the sheer beauty of a carpet of purple which has been created by the planting of 18,000 crocus corms at the cemetery. …
I’ve always thought that a nice way to go when my time comes is in my sleep. But what of these unfortunate and mostly untimely deaths? How did they come to take their last breath? *In 620 BC, an Athenian lawmaker by the name of Draco was smothered to death…