The Natural Death Centre

20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA, UK

(e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com; tel [int. 44] (0)181 208 2853; fax [int. 44] (0)181 452 6434)

The Natural Death Centre is a non-profit charitable project launched in Britain in 1991, with three psychotherapists as directors. It aims to support those dying at home and their carers and to help them arrange funerals. It has as a more general aim that of helping improve 'the quality of dying'.

Publications

Publications available from The Natural Death Centre's include:

An information pack, a collection of A4 leaflets, about all aspects of the Centre's work and about inexpensive, Green and 'd-i-y' funerals. It also gives the addresses and telephone numbers of the latest Nature Reserve Burial Grounds, and suppliers for mail-order and cardboard coffins, body bags, etc. This pack costs six first class stamps (or a £1-50 UK bank cheque, £3 by credit card - please phone or fax or e-mail and include card expiry date - for airmal anywhere in the world) to help cover the photocopying and postage costs. It is, however, included free with either of the Centre's own books, below. The Centre's main funerals information, including material on green and woodland burials (although for addresses of green burial grounds, see below) and information on cheap, green, d-i-y funerals, and list of useful organisations in the UK, is now freely accessible online.

A Living Will (advance directive), a concept recognised by the British Medical Association and specifying how much high tech medical intervention one wants in particular circumstances if terminally ill. Plus forms for life values, a death plan, advance funeral wishes. Available from The Natural Death Centre in return for four UK first class stamps (or £1 UK bank cheque, or £2-50 by credit card - please phone or fax or e-mail and include card expiry date - for airmail anywhere in the world) per set to help cover the Centre's admin costs.

The Natural Death Handbookcovers sorting out one's financial affairs, Living Wills, practical care of the dying at home, laying out the body, making a coffin, arranging a funeral without funeral directors, private land burial, a guide to helpful funeral directors, crematoria, cemeteries and funeral suppliers, a directory of resources and organisations, and advice on probate and bereavement. £10-95 inc. p&p from The Natural Death Centre (£11-41 by credit card in the UK and £12-49 by credit card outside the UK by airmail - please phone or fax or e-mail and include card expiry date).

Before & After- A book of best recent (1995) ideas for improving the quality of dying and for inexpensive, Green, d-i-y funerals. (£5-95 by credit card in the UK and £6-50 by credit card outside the UK by airmail - please phone or fax or e-mail and include card expiry date).

Green Burial, by John Bradfield, which covers the law and practice relating to burial on private land: collecting the body, distance from houses, use of a coffin, depth of graves, environmental health, infectious diseases, autopsies, certificates of lawfulness, burial ground registers, exhumation, cremation, etc. £9-85 incl. p&p by UK bank cheque from The Natural Death Centre (£10-26 by credit card in the UK and £11-26 by credit card outside the UK by airmail - please phone or fax or e-mail and include card expiry date).

Coming Home, A Guide to Dying at Home with Dignity by Deborah Duda, available for £13-70 for the UK only incl. p&p from The Natural Death Centre (£14-27 by phone and credit card, again available for the UK only).

Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying by Stephen Levine, available for the UK only £9-45 incl. p&p from The Natural Death Centre (£9-80 by phone and credit card, again available for the UK only).

Activities

The Natural Death Centre's activities include:

Setting up The Befriending Network in 1994, which is run from Oxford. This is a UK nationwide network providing trained volunteers who visit the homes of those who are critically ill. The volunteers can help relieve the carer by running errands or by sitting with the person who is ill. If you know of those who might need this service, or who might like to become volunteers (a three hour per week commitment), please contact Diana Senior, The Befriending Network, 11 St Bernards Road, Oxford OX2 6EH (tel 01865 512405).

Setting up The Association of Nature Reserve Burial Grounds in 1994, which brings together farmers and local authorities who are establishing burial grounds where, instead of a headstone, a tree is planted for each grave; and where members of the public can, if they wish, obtain coffins or shrouds without using funeral directors. In October 1995 there were more than sixteen such green burial grounds either open or with planning permission. Some 40 others are still going through the planning process.

Running various events including one-day or weekend workshops entitled Living with Dying. These latter workshops are intended to provide a safe setting in which people can discuss their beliefs about (and experiences of) death and dying, their ideas about funerals, etc. Christianne Heal, a director of the Centre, is prepared to run these workshops by arrangement anywhere in the UK or abroad, wherever a group can publicise them and can attract sufficient participants.

Running regular discussion groups or 'Salons'. See the online details of the Centre's next Natural Death Salon.

Running seminars for nurses and doctors training in palliative care. Josefine Speyer, another of the Centre's directors, conducts these seminars, again by arrangement with relevant organisations.

Organising an English Day of the Dead, modelled on the Mexican Day of the Dead, on the second Sunday of April each year. In 1995 this took the form of an open day at the Nature Reserve Burial Grounds and at two new funeral shops. There used to be a day of the dead in springtime in Britain, which was later moved to the autumn. The Centre feels that April is an easier time of the year for people to be able to contemplate their mortality. There has been a different theme each year - for example, art, music and exhibitions in 1993, and rituals for remembering the dead in 1994.

Acting as a consumer advice body, available by phone or letter, for unbiased information, referrals and recommendations. A Good Funeral Guide to who are the most helpful undertakers, funeral suppliers, crematoria and cemeteries (and giving awards to the best of these). Also pressing for more NHS resources to be put into the care of the dying at home, and researching recommendations to the Office of Fair Trading and others.

The Natural Death Centre
20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA, UK.

Directors: Nicholas Albery, Josefine Speyer, Christianne Heal.
Honorary Consultants: Professor Malcolm Johnson (Open University 'Death and Dying' course), Glenn Mullin (author of 'Death and Dying - The Tibetan Tradition'), Dr Sheila Cassidy (Medical Director, St Luke's Hospice, Plymouth), David Lorimer (Chairman of the International Association for Near-Death Studies), Rev. John Papworth BSc Econ, Yvonne Malik (initiator of Memory Boxes), Ven. Philip Kapleau, Roshi (Zen teacher), Julian Litten (funerary historian and Curator in Public Affairs, Victoria and Albert Museum), Richard Boerstler (Associates in Thanatology), Sheila Thompson (previously principal social worker at St Joseph's Hospice), Arthur Berger, J.D. (Survival Research Foundation), Prof. James Stevens Curl (author of 'A Celebration of Death'), Paul Badham (Director of the MA in Death and Immortality, Saint David's University College), Anton Grosz (author of 'Letters to a Dying Friend'), Ray Wills (Buddhist Hospice Trust), Deborah Duda (author of 'Coming Home - Dying at Home with Dignity'), Prof. John Wren-Lewis (author of 'The Reluctant Mystic'), John Bradfield (author of 'Green Burial')

The Natural Death Centre is a project of the the Institute for Social Inventions which runs the Global Ideas Bank.
e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com; tel [Int. 44] (0)181 208 2853; fax [Int. 44] (0)181 452 6434.