---
title: "Death and Cakes – the only two things certain at a Death Jam"
date: "2013-02-08T15:14:10+00:00"
modified: "2013-02-08T15:14:10+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/2013/02/08/death-and-cakes-the-only-two-things-certain-at-a-death-jam/"
post_id: 5697
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Death and Cakes – the only two things certain at a Death Jam

![The death jam cakes](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/Death-Jam-Cakes-Pic111.jpg "The death jam cakes")“They’ve gone to a better place”. Could there be a more obnoxious lie than this when someone you love dies? This is one of the things we discussed at the inaugural[ Death Jam ](http://cookievonstir.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/death-jam.html)event held earlier this week in Islington, North London. Organised by Els Merryprice, Death Jam is her take on the [Death Cafe](http://www.deathcafe.com/p/what-is-death-cafe.html) movement, where “people come together in a relaxed and safe setting to drink tea and eat delicious cake and discuss death”.

Els, who has lost several family members including her mother, says that “talking about \[death\] is always loaded with emotion…I find myself omitting certain things from the conversation, or deliberately not mentioning it at all for fear of people thinking I just want sympathy. It’s strange, I never realised how much so until I had the opportunity to chat to total strangers about it.”

She first chatted to “total strangers” about death when she attended a Death Cafe event last summer and says that she “left there feeling like I’d been able to be completely honest about loss for the first time in a long time”. She decided that she wanted to carry on talking about death, but that “as a humanist and an anthropologist” she wanted to “explore the concept further from a more scientific perspective”.

She invited me to be a speaker at the first Death Jam and I’m really glad I agreed, because otherwise I would have missed out on a remarkable experience. The tea and cakes were truly delicious but the highlight of the evening for me was a talk by the humanist philosopher[ Peter Cave](http://www.petercave.com) who made the audience laugh and think in equal measure. It felt like most of the audience enjoyed the event and it’s had positive [reviews](http://www.misshoneybare.com/2013/02/08/death-jam-review/).

The Jams are monthly and on the agenda will be alternative funeral arrangements (March), and “Death in the City” (April) featuring the author of “Necropolis: London and its dead” and a presentation from a Crossrail engineer about the burials they’ve uncovered during works. Check [Els’ blog](http://cookievonstir.blogspot.co.uk) for details nearer the time.