August’s U3A speaker, Trixie Duckett, tackled a subject most of us would rather put off indefinitely: death, and the practical business of what happens after it.
She walked us through the expanding menu of options — cremation, cemetery burial, woodland burial, and the newcomer alkaline hydrolysis or more commonly known as “water cremation”
Coincidentally, RNZ ran a piece on Dutch mycelium coffins just days later.
If you want to be buried ‘elsewhere’ it has to be at least 30kms from the nearest cemetery, ‘as the crow flies’.
You can, if you want, be buried at sea. NZ has 5 designated sea cemeteries. Permission must be sought from the Environmental Protection Authority who will also notify the local Iwi. Ashes can be scattered and does not require a permit or designated site, but local Council rules should be checked.
If you want to have a sea burial in the UK one of the designated areas is The Needles.
But the real takeaway wasn’t the price list — it was Trixie’s observation that grief is hardest on families who haven’t talked about any of this beforehand. She sees plenty of discord; she’d rather see harmony. A timely nudge, then, to have the conversation while we still can.
It was Trixie’s observation that grief is hardest on families who haven’t talked about any of this beforehand.
U3A MARTINBOROUGH — CURRENT AFFAIRS
Tuesday 3 November. Nick Judson
10.00–11.30am. Heartlands, Everyone welcome.
This month we welcome one of our own members, Nick Judson.
Nick is a retired psychiatrist. In his varied 40-year career, much of his work was in forensic psychiatry — assessing and managing mentally impaired offenders in courts, prisons and secure hospitals. He will speak on the defence of insanity in a criminal context: what it means, how it works, and what happens to those found not guilty by reason of insanity.
