JON UNDERWOOD & BILL PALMER
JON UNDERWOOD: I first got interested in death
in 1998. It wasn't because of a bereavement or any
personal experience. It was because I got interested in
Buddhism and there was a teaching by the Buddha on
the value of looking at impermanence and death that
really resonated with me. I volunteered in a hospice and
read Kübler-Ross and other texts and trained in spiritual
care for the dying.
In 2010 I said to my sister, "I'd really like to create some
websites around death.” That was a transformational
moment for me. Ideas flooded into my head, and I
was really hyper for two or three weeks. I could hardly
sleep. I’ve never experienced anything like it before or
since. At the end of that time, I had developed some
ideas for projects around death and dying. One of them
was a project for people who aren't dying to get them
talking about death.
DEAN BRANNAGAN
So for the second
Death Café we
just let people
talk, and that's
what we've been
doing ever since.
JON UNDERWOOD
72 | ART OF DYING
About three months later, my step-father gave me an
article from the Independent about the work of Bernard
Crettaz and his first Café Mortel in Paris. That very day
I realized "That's it. That's beautiful. It's democratic. It's
open. Food and drink. What's not to like?" and I thought,
"That's exactly what I want to do," and that was the
moment I decided to create Death Café
I went to a local café and asked, "Could I run a Death
Café here?" They looked at me really blankly and said,
"What's that?" I tried to explain. They just said, "Can you
email us about this?" So I did and never heard back. I
was stuck. I wanted to do it, but I didn't know how. Then
a friend suggested doing a popup thing, and I thought,
"That's brilliant. Then I've got control of the environment.
I'll just do it here in my house.”
So I asked my mum to do the Death Café with me. She
was like, "Well, all right. I'll do it. I’ll bake the cakes. What
is it?" I came up with this elaborate structure of having
people write down their hopes and wishes that would