While some, many, people find the dying and death subject ones to be avoided, others find them fascinating and intriguing. So much so, that they go in search of people who think about and work in these fields of life.

One such person is Hayley Campbell, who has spent the last three years talking, thinking and writing about death. She has interviewed a gravedigger, a pathologist, a bereavement midwife, even an executioner.

Their words and experiences, and those of eight other people who work closely with the dead, form the basis of her powerful and personal new book, ‘All the Living and the Dead’. But her first interview was with Poppy. We asked her why she started there.

“I had always wanted to talk to a funeral director. I found Poppy by accident. Without Poppy, this would have been a very different book. She changed the whole tone. It was life-changing for me.”

Read the full story at the highlighted link above.

And hear Hayley speak about her experiences and the reasons why she wrote the book, in this program on ABC radio: Hayley’s morbid curiosity, Conversations, with Richard Fidler, Broadcast Wed 22 Nov 2023 at 11:00am

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Tapestry with Mary Hynes, is an audio program, with this episode titled: After life: Finding meaning at the end. Play Episode: 53:52

There are two topics that tend to send some people recoiling from a conversation: aging and death. We hear from people who are confronting both — and changing the way people think about the end of our lives.  Aired: Oct. 29, 2023