We all deserve a chance to be honoured and to celebrate - and a choice in how that is done. It started in 2017, but the idea had built up over decades of participation in friends’ and family members’ celebrations and life rituals. As a community worker, lecturer, storyteller and guide, working increasingly in heritage and oral history, I was sometimes asked to speak or tell stories at tribute events - not to mention planning two contrasting weddings of my own! - plus crafting contributions to weddings and baby-namings which respected the couple’s differing spiritual views.
One deeply disappointing funeral (we’ve all been one of those) led me to organise a more fitting bilingual tribute event, on a Scottish beach, for that much-loved old friend of our international group, to honour him in a more personal and fitting way.
That was the trigger for training with the internationally-respected Fellowship of Professional Celebrants, whose emphasis on client choice (with no agenda), diversity, inclusion and ethical guidelines matched perfectly with my own blend of philosophical and spiritual values. It was enthralling and enlightening, and allows me to draw on my background in folklore and community development.
So here I am, now a public professional celebrant and ready to help with whatever ceremony, ritual or tribute you have in mind. Let’s talk it over soon.
North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland