SARAH SINGLETON meets cemetery owner Liz Rothschild, who has won an award for her outstanding contribution to the understanding of that great taboo — death

LIZ Rothschild would like to be buried in a cardboard coffin, so family and friends can write messages on it before she is buried at the Westmill Woodland Burial Ground, near her parents.

She wants her children to bear and lower her – if they are happy to do it – and the Bach Cello Concerto to be played.

Not that Liz shows any sign of dying anytime soon — she positively buzzes with vitality and she has a US tour coming up soon — but her down to earth approach and her easy manner of talking about her own inevitable demise are part of her mission to help us all get better at talking about death. It is this mission that has earned her an award for The Most Outstanding Contribution to the Understanding of Death, at the Good Funeral Awards.

Aptly, her trophy is a cardboard coffin decorated with flowers, inside of which is a beautiful statue of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of cemeteries and the afterlife.

In Britain, we tend to do death badly, Liz believes. And to swim against this tide of repression, taboo and embarrassment, she has created festivals, written theatre productions and even established her own burial ground.

“In the time of Queen Victoria, there were massive mourning rituals, with all the clothes and jewellery. Then we had World Wars one and two, and that was all got rid of. We soon realised we couldn’t behave like that when death was happening on such a scale. Our mourning went underground,” she says.

“Princess Diana’s death released that. She died young and it was a tragic death, yes, but I think people also brought their own griefs to it. They felt they were allowed to cry and put their arms around each other.”

Liz, 60, from Coleshill, began her particular journey with death in 1993, when a very close friend died suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain clot. Her friend was an atheist, so Liz and her friends struggled to work out how best to commemorate her life and death, at a time when more unconventional ceremonies were uncommon. They decided the coffin should stay in a friend’s home, and to create an event themselves; Liz became the Master of Ceremonies.

“That whole journey brought us up against all sorts of assumptions,” she recalls. “When she was brought to the flat, we had the coffin open – and she had make-up all over her face. The trouble was, she never wore make-up and we never guessed anyone would put make-up on her, and the funeral directors had assumed they should do it.”

This experience of her friend’s death and ceremony prompted Liz to become a celebrant at ceremonies, such as naming events, weddings and funerals. She already had the right skill set, as an experienced performer and theatre practitioner.

She had trained at Bristol Old Vic and worked in rep and small-scale touring before starting to direct and write. Liz has worked in a variety of community theatre contexts, with Reach Inclusive Arts and the National Trust, and the Partners Theatre Company. As well as being a celebrant, she started to explore the issues around death within the theatrical context.

“I have always been interested in taboos, and death is perhaps the thing we do worst,” she says. “We find it very hard to talk about. People worry it’s wrong to cry at funerals. We do not let ourselves cry. I think people worry that if they start, they won’t know how to stop.”

Liz also explored issues around bereavement in a show about death called Behind You, performed by the Partners Theatre Company for people with disabilities.

She said: “Children and people with learning disabilities are even more excluded from this territory than anyone else. I had one member of the company who was told it was not appropriate for him to attend the funeral when his grandmother died – but he insisted.”

In 2012, she established the first Kicking the Bucket Festival, in Oxford, with a host of events at venues around the city that explored issues around dying, death and grief. The event was such a success, it was repeated in 2014 and 2016. She has also organised Death Cafes, spaces where people can come to talk and find advice about all manner of death-related issues – practical, emotional or philosophical.

“Often we do not acknowledge we are going to die, so we do not talk about it with our families. That can lead to disputes between siblings about a parent’s funeral. Sometimes people will cross a street to avoid someone who’s recently bereaved because they are afraid they don’t know what to say. But when you take control you feel so much better,” she says.

“If the funeral arrangements are all taken out of their hands, people don’t have the experience of journeying through it. Bereavement is not something we get over, it is something we grow round. We need to learn how to journey. The space inside will not contract or fill but your life will flow around the space.

“If people want to talk about it, they should. We’re often told we should be ‘moving on’ – and that may sometimes be the case – but often we need to talk about times we have shared.

“We talk about people ‘passing’ but we should feel our feet on the ground and say it how it is. The euphemisms make us more afraid. I do not think they are helpful. The bottom line is, we can’t avoid pain. We have to work our way through it.”

Liz shares her award with Jane Harris and Jim Edmonds, who set up the Good Grief Project following the death of their son, who was killed in a road accident. She paid tribute to their work, which explores ways to remain in relation to the person who has died.

The Westmill Woodland Burial Ground, near Shrivenham, was set up in 2013. It is a not-for-profit, community interest company – a three-acre space on the farm of Liz’s partner Adam Twine. Growing with willow trees, and with views to the downs and the Uffington White Horse, it is an ideal location for a funeral close to nature.

The burials have no memorials, only small markers, and gradually the area will be planted with native British trees and meadow flowers. The coffins must be biodegradable, using cardboard or wicker, for example, or a fabric shroud – and the bodies must not be embalmed. The ceremonies are entirely up to the family and friends involved – whether that is a vicar and a religious ceremony, or a humanist event, or a music celebration.

“When we started out, people thought it would be a wild and weird hippie thing, with gongs and crystals and burning sage – and we have had a few of those – but mostly we’ve had funerals for people who love to walk, or love their gardens, and it’s about being close to nature. That’s what brings people here,” Liz says.

About 150 people have been buried at Westmill so far, and already it looks like a nature reserve.

Liz will be travelling to the United States in October, touring her one-woman show Outside the Box, a collection of stories collected “from life’s finish line” that she premiered at the Swindon Festival of Literature.

“People ask me if I find thinking about death depressing,” she explains. “But I don’t. I am alive and being aware that one day I will be dead helps me really enjoy life, reminds me what an extraordinary thing it is to be alive.”

For more information about Westmill, visit woodlandburialwestmill.co.uk.