What you are talking about is really close to my heart. With my late hisband Nicholas Albery I was a founder of the Natural Death Centre which we set up in 1991 in London. Ever since, the NDC has been spearheading the natural death moment in the UK. The media has been an important force for the good in this. I am impressed by your Greening the Afterlife series! The philosophy of the NDC has very much been the one expressed by people on your programme and also the comment from Susan Brooks regarding simple burial. The NDC is an educational charity which aims to help improve the quality of living and dying. It provides information through the Natural Death Handbook, the helpline and the website, in particular about how to organise an environmentally friendly funeral or natural burial, with or without the help of a funeral director. It has also set up and administers the Association of Natural Burial Grounds and give advice on how to set up a natural burial ground. I think the Green Burial Council in America is doing similar work. There are now over 250 natural burial grounds in the UK and many more are in the planning stages. It is wonderful to see the developments in America. The National Home Funeral Alliance was formed and has just had its first annual conference in Boulder, Colorado. I had the privilege to be invited to speak there and am I much impressed learning about the really wonderful work people are doing here. It is a joy to see how you in America are catching up with us in the UK! For once the tiny UK is a little bit ahead of you, but my instinct says that this wont be for long. You are ready for a change in how you deal with dying and with death and the environment. It is about seeing dying and death in a holistic way. It is about bringing death back home again. It is a much needed change and I am glad to see it is now coming. You might find this web link inspiring. It is a 20 minute speech by Sister Frances Dominica about the first children’s hospice, set up in the UK in 1982. It is very moving and gets to the heart of the matter. http://www.stpauls.co.uk/play.asp?vid=57
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