All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation into the Death Trade

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A benediction granted not from the altar of faith but the altar of life, where a man’s accumulated experience and misbegotten acts become the trapdoor that he opens to look inward, only to find that within there is the same thing as without: nothing. Gripping . . . Campbell is a sharp and witty observer who successfully conveys her own fascination with the subject. A vivid and open-minded look at a taboo topic." — Publishers Weekly At the end, as he’s lifted us into the dark poetry of Gabriel’s vision, separating our perception from the experience of the man and letting us glide unfettered in the gentle cushion of the winter night, Joyce brings us down firmly with his final phrase. We wouldn’t want to bring the mood down any lower than it is. Let’s be upbeat. Let’s talk about it later. Let’s think about talking about it one day when death is no longer here. But there has never been a point in history when death wasn’t everywhere. Where living things are, death follows. And sometimes – when we have the privilege – where death goes, so does denial. Death is everywhere, but it's veiled, or it's fiction. Just like in the video games, the bodies disappear." Reading this sentence in the introduction reminded me of the reports of deaths earlier on during the never-ending pandemic of Covid. We would hear on the news of many deaths but as we survived in our 'pods' it didn't seem real. We were removed from the action so to speak. Where was the evidence of so many deaths?

A careful, moving investigation of existential matters told with a keen literary sense and memorable personal insights. This moment suggests a fleeting encounter with his own image as others see it, and, by extension, a momentary awareness that there are other people in the world living their own lives and negotiating their own heartbreak. The epiphany that follows at the end of the story is certainly more decisive, but its lasting significance nevertheless remains ambiguous: Starring Colin Morgan and Charlotte Spencer, The Living And The Dead was created by Ashley Pharoah. The executive producers are Ashley Pharoah for Monastic Productions and Faith Penhale and Katie McAleese for BBC Wales Drama Production. Eliza Mellor is producer and Alice Troughton and Sam Donovan direct. Spent new year devouring this book. Essential reading if you’re a human person in possession of a life. A fascinating, searingly honest and unexpectedly tender look at those who take care of us in death. I badly needed to read this.” — Tuppence Middleton

In 2019, I was in Salisbury and attended the Alphabet Business Convention without knowing any artist. Lost Crowns was my favourite band that played there. Pablo P. go to album Author and journalist Hayley Campbell is not one who runs from death. For this book, she interviewed many people who work with the dead. These include: Embalmers, cremators, anatomical pathology technologists (yeh, I hadn't heard of them before either), grave diggers, executioners (countries like the US still have the barbaric death penalty, though most modern democracies have abolished it), and even a man who makes death masks.

The other side of that coin, however, was my discovery that there are certain souls, who if there is a god deserve a total and complete remission from their sins, who specialize in bereavement midwifery. How very, very beautiful a soul those people must possess. How vast their reserves of kindness and empathy must be. And how deeply glad I am that they do this job. Paul O. Jenkins (2010). Richard Dyer-Bennet: The Last Minstrel. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-6047-3360-0. The six-part BBC One TV Series began rehearsals on 29 July 2015, [18] [ bettersourceneeded] and shooting commenced in the West Country on 3 August 2015, [19] [ bettersourceneeded] with an official announcement about the series on 7 August 2015. [15] Filming concluded on 18 December 2015. [20] On 12 August 2016, BBC had officially stated that the series would not be renewed for a second series.

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A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there. Campbell weaves judicious reflections on the philosophy and history of the death industry into the reportage... Never macabre... poignant... Transformative

A great book describing what happens when we die. The author is a journalist and her deeply personal story on discovering death makes the whole book. All the Living and the Dead is not a book to read by the faint of heart as it does contain a number of gruesome details for each vocation. Author, Campbell had the distinct pleasure of not only interviewing the people involved, but also having a hands on experience with some of the interviewees. Campbell deftly describes the gory details and at the same time expertly manages to add a human element to an otherwise inhuman narrative. Generous’ here is generously poised between denoting empathy and magnanimity (Gabriel’s tears show his new-found generosity of spirit towards others, such as his wife, such as Michael Furey) and simply signifying copiousness. The Living and the Dead production was based in the Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol, England. [16] The primary filming location was Horton Court in Gloucestershire. [17] For people who are less familiar with death workers, this should prove to be an eye-opening read. I’m grateful Campbell was allowed to run with her curiosity and ask the questions she did. I hope it leads to more introspection and reflection about our own end-of-life wishes, as well as those of our loved ones.I've missed this sound! H&tN reincarnated with new and original music. Fab AND groovy! peterdw go to album

When the pandemic began I was in the middle of writing a book about how not only do we not talk about death – despite the fact that we have filled our pop culture with it – but that we have created a whole industry of people who serve as a barrier between us and death in a physical sense. A body does not magically disappear, or transport itself to the grave. There are people who shepherd it from deathbed to cemetery plot, who care for it where we do not go.” Not many people like to think about death because we are reminded that one day we too will perish and our molecules will be recycled into forming other things, both living and inanimate.Colin Morgan [2] as Nathan Appleby, a pioneering Victorian psychologist who moves to his family's estate in Somerset and encounters disturbing events This realisation arrived in the maelstrom of her crisis about her job. Conversations long ignored were now being had. When it was clear that both of her parents were going to survive, she saved some money, quit the art world and went to Ghana for a break. There she got typhoid and nearly died too. Where do we go when we die? Not our souls, not our spirits, but our corporeal wrapping of blood and bone, sinew and soft tissue. Who takes care of the dead for us when we cannot? And perhaps, more importantly, what leads these same people to face this starkest reality, the intimate stripping of mortal illusion, in our stead? Joyce doesn’t take life away from Gabriel, just the protection of his self-delusions. After this night, Gabriel will have to live life knowingly in the shadow of the dead. This book about death and about the people whose jobs and whose lives are dealing with death is moving, funny, and liable to unexpectedly cause me to tear up, reading it. It's about the head and the heart of death, about who we are, and is filled with images and moments that will remain in my head until the end. It manages the astonishing balancing act of conveying Hayley Campbell's own fascination with Death, the dead, and the people who deal with death in one or other of its manifestations, while also allowing us to feel what she feels for the living and the dead. A gentle book and, like death itself, sometimes an unexpectedly kind one.” — Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods