Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

Over a thousand years ago in the land of the Vikings, if you were a peasant your funeral would most likely consist of a hole in the ground and not much more. However, if you were worthy of it, you'd get a Viking burial.

The way the burials were carried out could differentiate, but the overall belief was the same. The Vikings believed that after death they would join the Gods in the afterlife. They envisaged that they would need the same tools in the afterlife as they did whilst alive, so Vikings were buried with all of their worldly possessions. Men were commonly buried with tools and weapons, whilst women would take with them their jewellery and domestic equipment. It was important to Vikings that the deceased were buried with the same social standing as they had in life, so that they did not become homeless, wandering souls for all eternity. The barrows they were buried in often directly correlated to the wealth and social class of the deceased, in a similar way to the expense of a person's casket nowadays. Food and drink was sometimes included as a last meal for their final journey.

Vikings were often put in ships or boats with all of their worldly goods. People often think of Viking burials as ships set on fire and pushed out to sea, but apparently it was actually more common for small purpose built boats to be buried in the ground. Some were even made out of stone and set out in the soil. The big, extravagant ship burials we associate with the Vikings tended to be reserved for important people and kings.

Nowadays it would be pretty hard to replicate a Viking burial due to the rules and regulations of where burials can legally take place. It wouldn't be entirely impossible; you would just have to work closely with the various agencies in charge of the legalities of burials at sea and open air cremations, etc.

The idea of taking your worldly possessions with you is interesting, though. In the time of the Vikings they were things like tools and weapons, but what would that be in the modern age? A man's modern "tools" may consist of his iPhone, his PlayStation and maybe parts of a beloved car or motorbike. As a woman, I don't much like the idea of being buried with my domestic tools - the idea of sharing my casket with bottles of Cif Lemon and scrubbing brushes doesn't exactly fill me with glee! I like the idea of taking things with me though, perhaps photographs of loved ones, sentimental jewellery or some memories of key moments in my life.

What would you take with you?

From Our Newsletters: Disturbing Disney Deaths

Did you know we have a series of newsletters you can download from the Newsletters tab? Every so often we will re-post an article from past newsletters. Here's one from our Spring 2013 edition about the dark side of Disney films...

Disturbing Disney deaths 

You might think that kids' movies would gloss over the less pleasant sides of life, in an effort to shelter children's innocence for a little while longer. But Disney has other ideas! Death is a common theme in many Disney films, and sometimes those deaths are pretty brutal.

Ursula's Stabbing, 'The Little Mermaid'
Take Ursula's death in 'The Little Mermaid', for example, she's the bad guy of the film, so she has to go somehow. But did she really have to die by getting impaled on the jagged front edge of a sunken ship? And then she gets electrocuted too, just in case you thought she might survive getting stabbed directly in the gut.

Judge Doom Gets Dipped, 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'
Judge Doom from 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' is one nasty character. He is the main judge in Toontown and gets his jollies by punishing wrongdoing toons, preferably by killing them with his special Dip substance called.

When it's time for Doom to get his comeuppance, he first gets run over by a steamroller. Then, he stands up, flaps his paper-like limbs on over to an air pump, and blows himself back to relative normalcy. How is he even still alive? As it turns out, he's a toon, just like the ones he's killed with his dastardly Dip.
Thus, we get not only one horrifying death scene for Judge Doom, but two: he inevitably falls victim to his own creation, screaming like a banshee as he melts in a puddle of Dip.

Ray Gets Squashed, 'The Princess and the Frog'
It's one thing when the bad guys get taken down in the final act, but it's much more heart breaking when it happens to one of the good guys. In 'The Princess and the Frog', the talkative Cajun firefly named Ray meets his demise much sooner than anticipated.

What happens to the poor little critter? Well, he gets stomped to death! Never has the crunch of a dead bug brought so many tears!

Emily Binx and the Sanderson Sisters, 'Hocus Pocus'
Though 'Hocus Pocus' is arguably the best and most beloved children's Halloween movie ever made, we can't honestly claim that it's an entirely innocent endeavour. A creepy zombie cuts open his mouth and coughs up dust and leaves, and a cat gets flattened by a speeding bus. But even those scenarios aren't the most disturbing moments in the film!

In the beginning, the Sanderson Sisters kidnap an adorable little girl, tie her up to a chair, and proceed to suck the life-force out of her until her body lies dead and limp. Then, as a punishment for this terrible deed, the three witches are hanged in front of a town full of onlookers. Disney definitely isn't afraid to go dark!

Oogie Boogie Falls Apart, 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'
In Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas,' Oogie Boogie's demise is a rather disgusting one. As Jack Skellington grabs onto one of Oogie's loose strings, his sackcloth "body" unravels to let out his innards - thousands of disgusting bugs.

Ellie Grows Old, 'Up'
Lastly, this Disney death isn't as gruesome as the rest, but it still has the ability to absolutely destroy a viewer's hopes and dreams. Of course I'm talking about Ellie from 'Up,' who kicks the bucket less than ten minutes into the film.

First, though, we're treated to Carl and Ellie's love story. As they grow up, they build a happy life together. Then, Ellie grows old, gets sick, and dies.

Even if they don't get eaten by a wild animal, impaled on a spike, or hanged from a tree in the forest, people get old and die. Thanks for the reminder, Disney!

These are just a few examples of how we are exposed to death from a young age. We shouldn’t be scared to talk about it – even to young children.

There is a range of information available on how to talk to children about death with age appropriate literature. Child Bereavement UK, the Alder Centre, Marie Curie, Macmillan and Liverpool Bereavement Service are just some of the places that could help.

We’re working on a collaborative initiative around Bereavement policies in schools with a number of partners – watch this space for news or contact us if you want to get involved.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

On the last Friday of May, we headed down to Parklands School in Speke to take part in South Liverpool Housing's Neighbours Day.

We were extremely lucky with the weather - the sun was scorching even at 10am when we arrived to set up!   We had a stall with all of our new merchandise on there; mugs, badges and our brand new tote bags and trolley coins.

Neighbours Day was a brilliant opportunity to meet people living in Speke and the surrounding area, especially people not in a healthcare setting who may not know about who we are and what we do. We gave away all of our bags within half an hour of it being open and had to go back to get more - so if you spot anybody walking around with our logo on a bag, let us know!

There were all sorts of activities going on like a mini funfair, free massages and even a stall with snakes, rabbits and owls being flown about! We got free massages and emerged back to our stall feeling very floppy and relaxed.

We struck up lots of conversations with people who seemed to be mainly tempted by the goodies on our stall... We quickly find that everybody has a personal experience of death or losing someone, and a quick conversation starter like one of our newsletters or a bag can prompt a chat with even people who think the idea is all too morbid at first. That's what our project is all about, and it's so rewarding to see our brightly coloured branding and tongue in cheek newsletter articles doing their jobs well. A particular favourite moment of ours was asking a lovely young boy what he wanted to do before he dies, and expecting him to say something like "own a Ferrari" or "play for Liverpool" he completely shocked us by saying "to make my family happy". Our Community Chalk Wall showed us that quite often people tend to concentrate on family, experiences and happiness rather than gaining material things.

Halfway through the day, Merseyside Police pulled up behind us with their van and laid out all their uniform and riot gear for people to try on... Lucy couldn't resist playing dress up!

It was great to chat to so many people and get our message out there to some local residents. Watch this space for information about events we're attending in the future, pop along and say hello and we might give you one of our highly stylish bags!

Before I Die, I Want To...

During Dying Matters week in May, we were very excited to launch something that has never been seen in Liverpool before. We put a chalk wall in an empty shop in the beautiful India Buildings, and asked people to tell us what they want to do before they die.

"Before I Die..." is a project started by artist Candy Chang. She struggled to cope with her bereavement after losing someone close to her, and was looking for a way to channel her grief. She painted the side of an abandoned house with blackboard paint and stencilled it with a grid of the sentence "Before I die I want to________" and left some chalk. People passing by would pick up pieces of chalk and add to the board. By the next day, the board was bursting with people's lift aspirations and wishes of the things they'd like to achieve in their lives. Candy realised she wasn't alone in trying to make sense of her life, and felt a great sense of consolation.

She found that people were asking her to help set one up in their local area, and she began to send out toolkits all over the world. The global Before I Die project was born, with people in all over the world doing their own walls and uploading them to the Before I Die site. There are now over 200 walls in 15 different countries.

We decided that there was no better time to launch one in Liverpool than Dying Matters week. We worked closely with Liverpool Commercial District BID who helped us to secure an empty shop in the beautiful and historic India Buildings on Water Street. Our creative Project Manager Rachael managed to work around the conundrum of not being able to drill an actual chalkboard up anywhere, and made one out of black paper that we could take down and replace when it got full.

We managed to almost fill our wall on the first day it opened, and we noticed that hardly any of the responses related to material things. We'd expected to see "before I die I want to own a Ferrari" or "own designer clothes" but most of what people wrote was about family, happiness and experiences. Some people were reluctant at first to write when gently coaxed by us to come in... but as soon as they had a piece of chalk in their hand they said it had really made them think about the things they'd like to accomplish.

Here are some photos of the two chalk walls we ended up filling before it was closed on 3rd June:

The sign outside our beautiful shop

Mini chalk boards

We have our very own mini site for the chalk wall over at Before I Die, where you can view more photos and a bit about the project: Before I Die: Liverpool

Unfortunately our wall closed on 3rd June. We are currently looking into ways to keep it alive all over Liverpool, and we'd love to hear any ideas if you think you know where we could put one. If you had visited our wall when it was open, what would you have written on there?