The funeral

Matthew Bannister is marking twenty years of Radio 4’s Last Word by looking at how our attitudes to death, dying and the way we memorialise our dead have changed. In this episode Matthew reflects on how the audience reaction to the announcement of his mother’s death set him thinking about how our attitudes towards death and dying have changed over the last twenty years. As the baby boomer generation demands more personalised and bespoke memorial ceremonies, who is a funeral for? The living or the dead? And why are the old conventions being swept away? Matthew visits a celebrants training course in Bedfordshire, attends a very bespoke funeral in Bristol and hears how some people are choosing to have living funerals.

Presenter: Matthew Bannister
Producer: Ed Prendeville
Production coordinator: Jesse Edwards
Studio mixer: Dyfan Rose
Editor: Glyn Tansley