Free Shipping on Orders Over $ 100 *
client Service|Privacy insurance policy
Enter your email to sign up for our newsletter and save 25% on your next order
In becoming the world ’s first “ hoodlum funeral director ” and give the Green Funeral Company in the UK , Ru Callender and his partner Clairechallenged the stilted , traditional , structured world of the funeral manufacture ; fusing what he had discover from his own profoundly personal experiences with death , with the surprising and sound answers and raw emotion he discover in rave culture and ritual magic . In the passage below , he highlight his decision to turn the funeral manufacture on its head and search lifelike inhumation .
The chase is an excerption fromWhat Remains ? Life , Death , Ritual and the Human Art of Undertakingby Ru Callender . It has been adapted for the web .
The Flaws of the Funeral Industry
How do you become an undertaker in the UK?You just do it .
That might all be about to modify as the lumbering bodied beast of the funeral industry near the end of their 130 - class endeavor to ‘ regulate ’ the professing for their own hidden reasons , but in 1998 , if you had a particular mix of excitation , pure naivety and moxie , and no hint that what you were about to try and get out off was almost impossible ( and had done nothing much but gush and pass around straw field ) , thenyou just did it .
The man I saw on the television for a stoned five minutes , who convert my animation so completely , was Nicholas Albery , a remarkably similar public - school - system escapee as me , but older . I ’ve never actually met him in the pulp , though we have talked on the phone , buthe is one of the most authoritative people in my life . He is one of my ancestors .
Nicholas was a fully fledged part of the hippy underground , a practical theorist , a dreamer who could deform those dreaming into reality . He had been one of the main architects of a remarkable societal experimentation when he and others , include the radical poet Heathcote Williams , squatted a block of flats in Notting Hill and turned it at first into a ego - baffle commune then , regulate by the estimation of R.D. Laing , the maverick anti - psychiatrist , took it a short further , and created a resort for the emotionally vulnerable – the drug refugees from the LX that were starting to grow in number . They call this situation Frestonia , and it became famous when they tried to break away from the UK and declare themselves a country state . A draw of this was situationist dramatic art , but the actual experimentation was a beacon light in compassionate and tolerant community and existed for many age , supply a dependable situation for many vulnerable and not so vulnerable the great unwashed .
Nicholas was a utopian idealist with the energy and parkway of a pamphleteer , a form of disseminating underground ideas that had been popular since the sixteenth hundred . He produced estimation , all of which were based around empower and helping ordinary people to jump the train tracks of destiny and live life filled with meaning , and he largely distribute these thought via ego - published books , obtusely packed with information , echo the hippy tomes of the time such as the Whole Earth Catalog ( an American catalog and parry - refinement magazine).Nicholas turned his aid towards the closed - off world of funerals after a dissonant experience between the rude parentage of his son and the painful , medicalised death of his father .
Other citizenry had been down this way before . In the US , Jessica Mitford had written a coruscating fire on the funeral public called The American Way of Death , later the basis for Evelyn Waugh ’s comic novel The Loved One . Jessica exposed much about the predictably fake nature of last in America , the laughable upselling of funeral bling bling to extremely vulnerable people , the hollow platitudes of the preachers , the straightforward emotionally dishonest and unneeded process of embalm – a post - mortem continuation of the approximation of American exceptionalism that begun in the Civil War as a way of returning body to families from across the area and grow into a bizarre art form that could leave a person looking better utter than they were animated , the ultimate decorative triumph over the mussy truth of expiry and decline .
And with her disgust at the corporate nature of dying , the slick unctuous output line of products and pomp , came a rejection of observance and bereavement . Jessica can credibly be say to be someone zero of the ‘ just bung me in a black bag and put me out with the rubbish ’ brigade . Nicholas was get along at it from a different slant .
Natural Burials: Reclaiming the Experience
He project the consumer excesses , the unneeded violence and psychological lip service of embalming , the ridiculousness of the aesthetics of the British funeral , still in thrall to the class system and accede unceasingly towards the church . But his experience in the counterculture were very much of the do - it - yourself mood so , instead of only criticise the industriousness , which he for certain did , he uncover ways for a bereaved house to tame the experience , to bypass the so - call professional and deal with the practicality themselves , all of which he laid out in cleared detail in a series of intensity of a book holler The Natural Death Handbook .
Within ten year , I would be a trustee of the Polemonium caeruleum and in charge of editing and rewriting the 5th volume of the handbook .
He was not alone in research ways to reclaim the experience of death . John Bradfield , of Green Burial celebrity , had researched whether it was necessary to be buried in a churchyard or cemetery , and discovered it was n’t . This pull remove the humans of funerals , and in particular burying . As long as a few common - mother wit natural law around water contamination were adhered to , anybody could be buried on private estate .
Nicholas also unscramble the legality around using a funeral director , with the same countercultural readiness that the hippy had dismantled so many previously apparently intractable societal constructs , get in at the conclusion that the sept were , in fact , the funeral directors , and that commit enough information , they could legally and practically do it all themselves .
In the UK , you are still , just , not require to use a funeral film director by practice of law . It still is entirely potential to do the whole thing yourself , let in making the casket and look after the body at home and even burying them on your own land . The diligence itself was cognisant of this on a subconscious level , and so had made a number of moves to rise themselves indispensable , mainly by overstating the complexities of a post - mortem body and by understand that people were not actually up to doing all of this themselves .
They were mostly right . Few people have the guts to do it all themselves , but some do , and the first three editions of The Natural Death Handbook provided all of the hardheaded ways to do this , but most still wanted the aid of someone who was used to what could happen .
My Damascene moment was quite profound . I project my future put down out before me in a flash . I would become an funeral director , a young type – one who did n’t exclude the family or lead them down predictable paths of tradition that ended up with the moth-eaten vicar of a religion the family did n’t really conceive in .
Going Green: A Different Type of Undertaker
I am a social anarchist , I believe as Patti Smith say , that people really do have the power , and anarchy does n’t intend no rules , it means no rule . Having somebody who has been certify by the state instantly control what chance between you and your dead is a ruler in my Good Book . A low - level one in full term of the might of the nation , but possibly more meaningfully impactful than nearly any other physical body of self-assurance you might encounter .
So , it was clear-cut that there was a niche for someone to set up as an antiundertaker , or perhaps more accurately , an old - style mortician , the name they called themselves before they morphed into the more paternalist capital F funeral capital 500 director .
I would be the gatekeeper who opened the gates , a Wizard of Oz stepping out proudly from behind the drape ; I would accompany , not steer them , and together we would do the practicalities of what needs to happen , the ritual and hard-nosed transfer of a consistence from the humankind of the living to a place of transformation , the tomb or the fire and , in doing so , I would slowly mourn for and rebury my own dead – all of my syndicate ’s funerals that I had been excluded from , that had turned me and not my dead into a spectre , long lingering at these neglected events .
I ring Nicholas the next day to regulate a copy of the latest volume of The Natural Death Handbook and began telling everyone of my grand plans .
The news was treated with an amused dismissal by nearly everyone . It seemed so unbelievable that I , who had done so little in the way of paid piece of work , should make a succeeder of this bold plan , a plan that imply not only gatecrashing a centuries - old diligence that went helping hand in baseball mitt with the religious position quo , but meant make a new niche within it , a niche that would appeal enough to masses that they would jibe to apply my services , despite my deficiency of experience .
Getting Started With Natural Burials: Creating A New Niche
This amused dismissal was well deserved . I did n’t fully understand then that the funeral humans was such a bastion of conservatism , complete with dominating multinationals who called the pellet and encrust with 100 of pocket-size vie independent funeral directors , all of whom were scrabbling to survive under the venter of these industry beasts .
If I had , I do n’t think I would have had the courage to just go for it . I did n’t realise it was an almost unacceptable patronage to set up in , that it took years to realise a report and that reputation could be lost in a second . I did n’t fully actualize what a crop - category family - inherited trade it was or how bitchy and competitive it could be . I knew none of this . I just know that the current manakin had permit me down meter and time again and that the funerals I had attended and the funerals I had overleap were stuck in a post - war framework that was go wrong a lot of people .
I talk about this to anyone who would listen , much as I had babbled about crop rope a few eld earlier . I read every book that add up my way about grief and funerals , rituals of letting go , about death , death , decease .
Everything I read was pushing me frontward , making me more sure that this was indeed my vocation . That I could be an agent of variety because I was the solution of what happened when funerals were done badly .
Listen Up! Audiobook Sample: What does not kill us does some serious damage on the way through.
When he became an mortician , Ru Callender undertook to deal with the dead for the sake of the living . What Remains?is the splendid , unforgettable story of the life and work of the world ’s first punk , DIY undertaker — but it is also a record book about ordinary , everyday humanity and our capacity to face dying with courageousness and compassion . To say goodbye to the people we love in our own style .
This picture is an excerpt from chapter one of the audiobook of What Remains ? , read by Ru .
Recommended Reads
From the heart of An Undertaker : Grieving & Healing
Magic Within Every Garden : Sharing the Love
What Remains?
life history , Death , Ritual and the Human Art of guarantee
$ 28
Recent Articles
Farming Against Nature
When you ’re walking around the food market store looking at the vegetable , it ’s probably backbreaking to imagine that a century ago there was twice the amount of options .
Zesty & Simple: New Classic Rainbow Coleslaw
Easy rainbow coleslaw ! Transform your salad game with this coloured recipe . It is amazingly packed with flavor and is a great addition to your repertoire .
Foraging for Mushrooms: Gourmet Root Systems
For citizenry who enjoy foraging for food in the wild , there are plenty of mushrooms to choose from — “ ten thousand mushroom metal money to be considered on the North American continent alone ” . But foraging for mushrooms should never be imagine of as a secret plan of chance . You demand to know all the clues when it comes to describe …
Strong, Spicy, and Pleasant: Wild Green Kimchi
call for a new twist on kimchi ? Look no further than this wild green kimchi ! Experiment with what you have , anything from the leaf mustard family will work super well .
How to Create the Perfect Bee Hive: A Home Worth Buzzing About
For all the apiarist and next beekeepers out there , this one is for you ! Your journey to successful apiculture begins with constructing a worthy haven for honeybee , otherwise make out as the bee beehive . The following is an excerpt from Raising Resilient Bees by Eric and Joy McEwen . It has been accommodate for the web . Bees …
© 2025 Rizzoli International Publications Inc. All Rights Reserved .
Rizzoli International Publications300 Park Avenue South , 4th FloorNew York , NY 10010United state
There are items in your basket which are ready to ship.
You ’ll demand to checkout before impart this pre - order item to your basket .
