Ben Dansie

Entry One – Lay of the Land

bendansie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:09:36 +0000

Less a garden, more a parcel of land. Just under two acres of what used to be the orchard for the large farm next door. The farmer used to breed shire horses and we have collections of vast horse shoes carefully placed to hold shire horse amounts of good luck.

Between us and the farm house is a brook. A dam towards the northern corner of the garden keeps the level high and at this time of year you can hear a most unusual sound for Cambridge – tumbling water. The brook winds in a gentle curve along the boundary and leaves us in the south west corner. There is an informal bridge to the neighbours garden which we ae discovering enables the muntjac deer to come in at night and eat whatever is on the menu; last night it was aconites.

During the week I only really see the garden at night. It makes it much easier to see the pheasants sleeping in the trees, the few rabbits left now we have fenced them out, check the chickens and let the dog, Biscuit, pursue all sorts of shadows.

The end of the garden rather resembles a dinosaur graveyard. As this is the first year in the garden we have pruned hard before Christmas. Having slipped a disc on Boxing Day I have failed to get a fire going under the wet sycamore; when the frost finally come we’ll try again. There is a lot to burn and it needs to be done before spring comes. All the hornbeam saplings we dug up in Norfolk and transplanted behind the fire in the south east corner do not like they have made it. We shall try again.

We are in the process of identifying all the fruit trees and I will list them out in future entries but we have a selection of apple, pear, perry, plum and gages. The inevitable elder is everywhere but it is a welcome gatecrasher. Last year’s elderflower cordial was delicious. The freezer is full of it, along with pear and apple juice. Like all of Cambridge the garden is fairly flat but as in a number places around our small village you can see evidence of the original plough and furrow. We are blessed.

Big day tomorrow

bendansie — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:53:59 +0000

It’s a new dawn for Eco Coffins tomorrow. There’s a new member of the team joining who’s bringing a fresh perspective to what we do. They have worked for many years in the industry and have set up new crematoria. We want to understand how every part of the industry works so we can make change happen. Welcome Chris.

Find out more by going to our website.

Change is coming

bendansie — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:43:41 +0000

Since we launched our environmental coffin website last Autumn over 250,000 people have typed in our keywords for cardboard coffins, environmental coffins and of course eco coffins. It’s extraordinary how many people are out there changing their thinking about death.

Only tonight I was at a conference and the talk focused on how the environment is forcing the Funeral Industry to change. It’s predicted that one in five coffins will be eco-friendly in five years. Choice – the word we take for granted so often in life – is finally becoming available in death.

The real highlight was to hear about one of the UK’s best woodland burial sites – Colney Wood near Norwich. It’s a wonderful wood which really captures the spirit of how funerals should be.

The surprising occurrence of death

bendansie — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 20:22:09 +0000

Death is all around us. The media brings it to our attention more often than we would perhaps prefer. But when it affects us personally it comes as a huge shock, one for which most of us are ill-prepared. Why?

Wellbeing lies at the heart of modern society. We are all living the dream as fed to us. We shop, we holiday, we travel, we drive because we believe these are all dimenions of success and wellbeing. We all hurtle down this road so fast and the images are so dazzling that there is no space for the realities of illness, of troubled times and death.

But death is with us. I recently spent time at a crematoria, part of the testing for a new environmental coffin we are developing. Seeing the mechanics of this process completely changed my outlook. If only everyone could see that funerals are simply a process, a necessary and functional process, to get rid of the physical remains, then we might all stand a chance of being to really think about what death means for us.

Death can be tragic and traumatic. But it is a time of renewal and one of celebration and thanks for that life. If we can allow ourselves to move beyond the physical pain we see in front of us at funerals it is a hugely strengthening moment.

Celebrate a life lived

bendansie — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:12:23 +0000

Every life has been lived. When someone dies there is a funeral to say farewell. A funeral provides a structure at a difficult time. They were created as a way to bring dignity to the final goodbye, a way to honour the life of the person and a connection to the comfort that religion brings at such times.

But funerals have changed little over the years. In fact in the last 100 years it is hard to spot any significant changes to the traditional funeral.

Now things are changing. People are used to having choice and increasingly people are thinking about the way they say goodbye. Other ceremonies have changed hugely in recent decades and I believe it is time for the funeral to change too. The structure of a funeral is now too restricting. It doesn’t allow people to share their memories and thoughts in a way that enables people to feel they have really said goodbye. People are saying to me that they need to feel more personally involved in the ceremony and wish to have more choices on offer to make it more of a personal goodbye.

Death is inevitable. Change is inevitable, but it takes alot of effort to change people’s habits.

This blog has been started as a forum for people to say how they think the funeral, the process of grieving, and the celebration of a life lived can be done differently and be done better.