News
Queens Birthday Honours for Alliance members
The Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief alliance were thrilled to hear that two of our members had been awarded the MBE in the Queen's birthday honours list over the weekend.
Congratulations to Professor Scott Murray MBE (for services to Medical Science) and to Lt Col Helen Homewood MBE (Ministry of Defence) for their outstanding achievements.
Dying Matters Awareness Week - 14 to 20 May 2012
The Dying Matters Awareness week takes place between 14 & 20 May 2012.
The theme of the week is ‘Small Actions, Big Difference’.
By being more open about dying and taking small actions such as writing a will, signing up to become an organ donor or looking out for those who have been recently bereaved, we can all help make a big difference to ensuring people can live well and die well.
Find out more information here.
A Graceful Death
"A Graceful Death" is an Art exhibition by the artist Antonia Rolls.
Antonia started "A Graceful Death" by painting the last few weeks, days and day of the life of her partner as he gracefully left this life. It has now grown to include paintings of others at the most important part of their lives, as they near the end, and of those who are left behind.
You can see more about this work here http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.co.uk/
Film and book of Philip Gould's final days released
Philip Gould, the New Labour strategist, chronicled the last few weeks of his life before succumbing to oesophageal cancer in November last year at the age of 61.
Lord Gould's writing has now been published in a book, 'When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone'. A film of the same name has also been released. The film, an intimate and moving portrait of Lord Gould's quest to find purpose and meaning in what he called 'The Death Zone', was shot by photographer and director Adrian Steirn, who spent two weeks filming their conservations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2eUw0CUuMc&feature=player_embedded
At one point Lord Gould, who was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2008 and given six months to live in summer 2011, says: "It is only when you are told you are going to die ... [that] life screams at you in its intensity."
He describes his final journey as "the most exciting and most extraordinary period" of his life and talks about having “more moments of happiness in the last five months than in the last few years".
"As long as I look death in the eye and as long as I accept that I can choose the death that I seek and the death that I choose I have some freedom. I have some power," he says.
"I have some possibility to shape for myself my own death and at that moment I have a kind of freedom."
Lord Gould's book 'When I die: Lessons from the Dead Zone', is described as 'courageous, profoundly moving and inspiring'. He writes about how he realised something he had never heard articulated before: death need not be only negative or painful, it can be life-affirming and revelatory. When Philip could no longer write, his daughter, Georgia, took over, writing the final chapter of the book.
Listen to Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief, on BBC Radio Scotland
Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief will be taking part in the "Call Kaye" programme on BBC Radio Scotland on Friday 6th April. The programme will feature a phone in about death, dying and bereavement in Scotand. The relevant part of the show will start at around 9.50 am. Why not call in and join the conversation?
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