It was great to be part of the second ever Kings Heath Street Festival on Sunday 13th September.
With thousands visiting the York Road and Heathfield Road attractions, we were kept on our toes throughout the day.
Whilst it might have seemed a little strange to see a cardboard coffin at a street festival our aim was very much to demonstrate that funerals don’t have to feel like a sombre and formal affair.
The conversations we had with people of all ages proved that talking about what happens when someone dies is very important, and can really help people to be aware of their choices when that inevitable moment comes that they have to arrange the funeral of someone they love.
Participation can be an important way for families and friends to grieve – this can be as simple as picking your own flowers from the garden to decorating the coffin, which is why we ran a little competition for people to design their own coffin (we had a lot of brilliant entries and we’ll be announcing the winner shortly).
Visitors to the stall seemed to enjoy our chocolate brownies and coffin shaped biscuits – not surprisingly they went quite early on in the day – we’ll have to make more next time!
Carole from Tuckshop Flowers gave us a wreath made from beautiful british flowers to display on our home decorated cardboard coffin. With its berries, acorns and barley it demonstrated well what can be made outside of the traditional funeral floral displays if that’s your preference.
And we had fun talking about and sharing people’s ideal funeral songs on Twitter (#MyFuneralSong)
For more information and photos from Kings Heath Street Festival see:
