The UK urgently needs to talk about death more, a new survey says. A Splott cafe is facilitating these tricky conversations for people in south Wales
People all over Latin America will be remembering and celebrating friends and family who have died in the annual Day of the Dead festival on 1 and 2 November.
This month, a report from Marie Curie found there to be a “consistent and pressing need” for more conversations about death across the UK that could follow Latin Americans’ lead .
The death cafe in Splott is offering help with these much-needed discussions in Cardiff.
People in south Wales can gather at these monthly cafe sessions to drink tea, eat cake, and talk about the spiritual, scientific and ethical questions surrounding death.
In the UK, 59% of people thought British people should discuss death more as a society, but only 14% had talked about their end-of-life wishes, the study found.
The co-host of Splott’s death cafe, Regina Beach, said this disconnect was “not surprising”. This is in spite of Beach’s sense that there is a growing awareness and “more resources than ever” for talking about the subject in Wales.
Covid-19 prompted an increase in interest about death in Wales, says BMC Palliative Care. But Mark Taubert, a palliative care doctor at Velindre, said he hadn’t seen a shift in openness towards the subject.
Young people are particularly reluctant to talk about dying: only 62% of youngsters think death should be openly discussed, according to a poll by Opinium.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Amy Whitaker now lives in Cardiff. She said that in-person gatherings are important in the Day of the Dead celebrations; people bring coffee and food to talk about death and the deceased.
She added that Wales could learn from this approach to demystify death.
Taubert hosted a death cafe in 2019 and said that death cafes were a great social outlet. Conversing with strangers at a death cafe reduces the emotional baggage and taboo around the topic, he said.
