August 2024

The Luddenden Shroud: Film and Talk by Rachel Hawthorn

Tuesday August 20, 6.30 pm

Natural Endings Funeral Services, Former Mail Sorting Office, Rise Lane, Todmorden, OL147AA

Rachel Hawthorn is an Artist, Death Doula, and Shroud Maker. She has made a shroud for, and with, her friend Janet, as a soft, enfolding, earthy alternative to a traditional coffin. Janet was born in the Luddenden Valley and she intends to be buried there, in the small council-run natural burial ground. All the materials used in the making have been sourced from the valley itself, the place that has cradled Janet throughout her life. The Luddenden Shroud is a hand-felted woollen shroud along with a woven cradle crafted from foraged ivy, bramble, holly and willow.  It is both a functional object and an art work about life and death.

Come and see The Luddenden Shroud which will be on display in the beautiful space at Natural Endings for one evening only.  There will be time to get up close to touch shroud and see the materials used to make it. Rachel will introduce the film (approx 28 mins running time) and there will be time for questions and discussion afterwards. The film tells the story of the making of the shroud, and documents the journeys Janet and Rachel went on through the making process, reflecting on experiences of loss, times of sorrow and hardship.  The result is a death-postive meditation on friendship and the healing powers of nature and creativity.

Join us to learn all about this fascinating project and ask your questions and share your thoughts. This event is free but space is limited.


June 2024

Much Ado About Dying
Film with live Director Q&A
Sunday, June 2, 4 - 6pm
Hebden Bridge Picture House, New Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AD

"I can think of few documentaries that are more honest, self-scrutinising and revelatory about ageing, familial love and its limits, and the whole tragicomic process of dying."

Join us on Sunday 2 June for a screening of the documentary film Much Ado about Dying at Hebden Bridge Picture House. This is a special screening, in association with Pushing Up Daisies, with a Q&A following with Director Simon Chambers who you'll have got to know well during the film.

Information and tickets can be found here.

The film has garnered some great reviews, won some recent awards. You can see its trailer here.

"Nicely paced, and beautifully edited by Clare Ferguson, Much Ado About Dying is both an act of exorcism and an act of love."

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Community-Led Funerals:
DIY Funerals and John Mounsey‘s Community Led Funeral
Wednesday June 19, 7 pm
Natural Endings Funeral Services, Former Mail Sorting Office, Rise Lane, Todmorden, OL147AA

Natural Endings is co-hosting this event with Pushing Up Daisies. This is a free event, please reserve a seat on Eventbrite so we know you are coming.

End of life doula Mary Clear will give a talk and slideshow about John Mounsey’s final year, his death, his funeral and departy.

“In this town death is everyone’s business! Find out how neighbours strangers and friends can work together to ease the journey. We aim to show the importance of community networks from the undertaker to the cooks.” – Mary Clear

Rosie from Natural Endings will talk about DIY Funerals also known as Family Led or Community Led Funerals
“Natural Endings supported our community with John Mounsey’s funeral and departy. Our community just needed some practical help that we were more than happy to provide. The rest they did themselves.

You don’t have to employ an undertaker to ‘take care of everything’. You can do as much or as little as you want yourself. We find that some of the best funerals are created, in a hands-on way, by the people that loved the person that died. We can take care of the elements that you don’t feel up to doing. Such as just providing a coffin, taking in to care from the hospital/hospice or home, looking after your person in our specialist temperature-controlled mortuary, washing and dressing them, guiding you through legal documentation. What ever part you need us to take care for you and you do the other parts.” – Rosie Grant

There is also lots of great advice online about these kind of funerals. Especially The Natural Death Centre and The Good Funeral Guide.​

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May 2024

What happens when someone is in hospice?
Monday, May 20, 6.30- 8 pm
Todmorden Library, Todmorden OL14 5AA

Our next event on Monday May 20 aims to shed some light on the work of hospices. Nikki Scholey (Community Engagement Lead, Overgate Hospice) will talk to us about her work in the community with groups and organisations to raise awareness of the hospice and what they do.

Also attending is Karen Hagreen, Head of Education, who works with clinical professionals around End of Life Care and educates them so they can become End Of Life Champions. She also does a lot of work around Advance Care Planning.

This session should help us understand more about the work of hospice, provide answers to your questions and hopefully dispel some hospice myths!

We are grateful to Todmorden Library for hosting our meeting.
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​April 2024

Why are we so afraid of the D word?
Monday April 22, 7 - 9 pm
The Golden Lion (Upstairs), Todmorden OL14 6LZ
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We know that many people say they would rather not die in hospital yet that is where many of us will spend our final moments. We also know that not every medical professional we or our loved ones will encounter may be wholly comfortable with one of their patients dying whilst in their care and may not be able to talk clearly about what is happening.

Our recent event hearing from death doulas was very thought-provoking and we decided it would be wonderful to hear from some medical professionals who have experience with death and dying in medical settings to share their insights, research, learnings and perspectives and try to answer your questions.

We are delighted to welcome Laura Green and Nicky King to help enlighten us. We will hear from them individually then open up to Q&A and a group discussion. Topics will include but are not limited to:

  • Doctors' own fear of death can get in the way of honesty with patients and themselves
  • Over treatment at the end of life
  • Have we become a death-defying and/or death-denying society?
  • Can medical professionals harness their vulnerability to provide better and more honest care at end of life?
  • Palliative care: what can be done? Are there limits?
  • What goes wrong when a death is viewed as a "failure"?
  • Medical hubris, over-treatment and under-communication
  • Dealing with death anxiety in children and the elderly, and those that care for them.

Biographies
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Laura Green
Laura Green is senior lecturer in adult nursing at the University of Manchester, teaching palliative and end of life care at pre-registration and Masters level programmes. She is Programme Director for the Bachelors of Nursing. Prior to lecturing, she worked in palliative care nursing in the community and hospice settings across Bradford, and as a Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist in palliative care. She has a number of books and papers on palliative care, including collaborative palliative care, end of life care in dementia, and the impact of using archaeological case studies on attitudes, values and beliefs of health professionals around death, dying and grief. Laura’s doctoral research was an ethnography of dying older people in an acute hospital ward in the UK. She blogs at www.lmiddletongreen.wordpress.com and tweets as @heblau. She also works as a birth doula.

Nicky King
Nicky King qualified as a doctor from Sheffield University in 1985. Palliative Care was an emerging specialty and most palliative care doctors were GPs, with no specialty training available. So she became a GP and worked in general practice until she was asked to be the medical director at a children's hospice opening in Kent. Nicky combined this with sessional work at an adult hospice, and moved to be Medical Director there for a while until becoming Medical Director at a palliative care service that covered adults and children, as inpatients, outpatients, at home and in hospital.
For the final part of Nicky's career before retiring in 2022 she moved to Leeds and worked as a Medicolegal Consultant for a medical defence organisation, supporting doctors with Medicolegal issues, including being witnesses at inquests. She has extensive experience in many aspects of death from a medical standpoint.
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March 2024

Living With Death Exhibition: Leeds City Museum comes to Todmorden
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Monday March 21, 7 - 9 pm
Natural Endings Funeral Services, Former Mail Sorting Office, Rise Lane, Todmorden, OL147AA
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Our next PUD Monthly event is on Thursday March 21. We are excited to host a visit from Adam Jaffer who is Curator, World Cultures at Leeds Museums and Galleries.

This May a new exhibition launches at Leeds City Museum entitled Living with Death: an exhibition exploring death, dying and bereavement

This exhibition invites visitors to discover how people experience death, grief and dying in different ways. Living with Death looks at how humans have developed knowledge and skills in response to life ending. We know that death affects everyone, but it is often difficult to talk about. The exhibition hopes to gently encourage conversation through personal stories, and objects from across the world and throughout history.A series of talks, workshops, and family-friendly events will complement the exhibition throughout the year.

For this Pushing Up Daisies event, Adam will be joining us to talk about the thinking behind the exhibition and associated events (running May 2024 to January 2025), the museum's hopes and intentions, as well as bringing us a box of death related artefacts and sharing some images for a sneak peek before the exhibition begins!
He will then answer questions and share his knowledge in a Q & A session.

We are hugely grateful to Natural Endings for offering their space to us for this event and we hope you can join us. Though the evening is free, we ask you to register so we have an idea of numbers for planning. Please register here.

Refreshments will be available. We look forward to seeing you on the 21st!


February 2024

Dignity in Dying: A personal perspective
Monday February 12th, 6 - 8 pm
The Honest John (Lounge), Rochdale Road, Todmorden

​Our next PUD Monthly event is on Monday on the subject of assisted dying.
This will be held in the lounge (just inside the door) of the Honest John public house and cafe on Rochdale Road.

We welcome a talk from Jennifer Wilson, a member of Dignity in Dying, sharing a brief history of the organisation and her own personal experience. We will hear what is on the horizon and about other countries who have adopted assisted dying laws.

This is an information giving session enabling attendees to reflect on the themes covered to hopefully help inform personal views and decisions. There will be time for questions and a moderated discussion. Please bring your questions or submit them by email to [email protected].


January 2024

What do End of Life Doulas do?
Monday, January 8th from 6 - 7.30 pm
The Kindness Hub, Todmorden

​The next PUD Monthly is on Monday, January 8th from 6 - 7.30 pm

Rachel and Mandy are a couple of death doulas living in the Calder Valley.

They will provide an informal chat about “What Doulas Do”

1. Brief overview of their training
2. An outline of what spiritual, practical and emotional support may look like in the context doulas may work in
3. An understanding of the dying process, grief, and compassionate communities.
4. Examples of sharing experiences as end-of-life doulas

And plenty of time for Q&A - with tea and coffee provided :-)

December 2023

Christmas, Holidays and Loss
Monday, December 11, 6 - 7.30 pm

The next PUD Monthly is on Monday, December 11 from 6 - 7.30 pm. For December we invite you to a themed group conversation around coping with loss at Christmas as well as other significant dates. Holidays after a loss are always hard but whether the loss is recent, or many years ago, you are welcome to share this space and hopefully find some solace and friendliness. Come along to share and hear from others discussing anything connected to this theme.
The conversation will be formed by what you bring and may include but is not limited to:
  • Who and what you're grieving
  • The traditions and rituals you're navigating
  • Changing plans, taking breaks, leaving early, and taking care of yourself.
  • Communication and solutions when you can't join in
  • Holding a space for the person you have lost
  • Enjoying holidays and guilt experienced

November 2023
Bereavement - What is it? A group conversation
Monday November 13 - Todmorden Library

Do we concur on our interpretation of this?
Do we each have our own experience?
Can we understand how it affects us?

What, if anything, can we do about it?

To help us investigate this topic we have Jackie Archer, a local therapist / counsellor who has specialised in working with bereavement and grief, she also has personal experience of loss and recently ran a local bereavement group.

Then, there's the "rest of us", ordinary people, wondering what on earth is happening to us.
Is it an inevitable experience? You've probably got your own questions or opinions, so please come along and help us answer this basic question.

We may well discover that it's not as basic as some of us might think.