Let’s Discuss Death : Our October Festival is almost here

It has been quite a year for Let's Discuss Death.

This time last year, we were about to host our first ever free community death literacy events. Since then, we've celebrated Dying Matters Awareness Week, deepened our relationships with the NHS and library services, delivered training to workplaces and community groups, and supported families through the before and after of a loved one's death.

Time and again, we see how needed this work is, and how much people welcome the chance to have these conversations and ask their questions.

Next week we're running five days of free community events in partnership with Tower Hamlets Libraries and Idea Stores and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. I'd love to see you there.

Would you like an autumn walk in a beautiful cemetery park?

• Forgotten Lives, Lasting Stories. Ken, the Park Manager, leads a guided walk through one of the most special places in the borough.
  Tuesday 27th and Friday 30th October, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

Would you like to be among people who can hold your grief?

• Carried With Us. A coffin-decorating workshop for all ages with artist Summer Oxley. The coffin you help decorate will be carried in the Day of the Dead procession on Columbia Road.
  Wednesday 28th October, Bethnal Green Library

• Grief Café. A gentle space to talk, or simply to listen.
  Wednesday 28th October, Bethnal Green Library

Get your questions answered before you need the answers

I don't want you to have to become death literate in real time, while you're caring for someone you love at the end of their life. Come along to the library and ask your questions now.

• What Families Need to Know When Someone Is Dying. A talk by Ruquyya Vankad, Deputy Chaplain at Barts NHS Trust.
  Wednesday 28th October, Bethnal Green Library

• The Gift: An Open Conversation about Organ Donation. A panel including the mother of an organ donor, a living donor, a doctor and nurses, ready to answer all your questions.
  Thursday 29th October, Bethnal Green Library

• Have You Told Them? A practical session on having tender conversations with your family. The skills are useful well beyond end-of-life conversations.
  Thursday 29th October, Bethnal Green Library

• Get Ahead of Being Dead with Evie King. You'll laugh a lot more than you expect while learning how to leave things in order.
  Thursday 29th October, Bethnal Green Library

• Let's Discuss Death: An Evening of Conversations. Death professionals sit at different tables, and you move between them for small-group conversations and answers to all your questions.
  Thursday 29th October, Bethnal Green Library

Alongside the scheduled events at Bethnal Green Library, local organisations and national charities will be on hand to tell you about the support available to you and your family.

Everything is free, but please book so we know to expect you. And please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.

Book your free tickets on Eventbrite

London's Day of the Dead, Columbia Road

Columbia Road has been home to London's Day of the Dead since 2016. This year, on Saturday 31st October, we've helped curate the Mercado in the primary school playground. Come and talk to the Natural Death Centre, Compassionate Funerals, St Joseph's Hospice, Sofia Sullivan Ceramics and us. Out on the street, there'll be dance from Mexican choreographer Alondra and a procession led by Mariachi Las Adelitas. It will be a day of music, colour and remembrance.

Keep in touch

Follow us on Instagram for updates from the week.

Thank you for being part of Let's Discuss Death.

Warmly,

Tilly Munro, Co-Founder

May Newsletter

Dying Matters Awareness Week 2026

Hello and welcome to the second Let’s Discuss Death newsletter.

We have had a very recent, utterly tragic and devasting bereavement in the family, so I’m writing this from a raw and discombobulated place.

I’m writing to you today because this coming week is Dying Matters Awareness Week in the UK and, in partnership with the libraries in Tower Hamlets and the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, we have organised a range of free events running from Monday 4th to Sunday 10th May.

• Learn how to navigate tender family conversations at end-of-life

• Come and ask my favourite funeral director anything

• Learn how to prepare for the inevitable with a death doula

• Explore how nature and crafting can play a role in grief

• Hear extraordinary stories from a critical care nurse

For full listings and to book your free tickets, please take a look on Eventbrite. I would love to see you there - and please spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested.

I have been very grateful for the collection of experiences I’ve had in my life which have enabled me to support my family in various ways over the last fortnight. Navigating repeated and terrifying health challenges with my son taught me how to be a thoughtful and fierce (but polite) medical advocate. Working as a funeral director showed me that dead bodies are not to be feared - and when it is the body of a human you love, whatever their age, spending time in their presence is a privilege. Volunteering in bereavement support with a charity for years revealed the ways each person’s grief is unique - but also the shared truths which connect all grieving humans. As my whole family is in the earliest days of a grief which will remain with us always, I’m very thankful for all these experiences.

Our Mission: Compassion Through Death-Literacy

The aim of Let’s Discuss Death is to improve death literacy - within families, friendship groups, work places, communities. The more we know and understand, the better we are able to advocate for ourselves and support each other. You can become more death literate in different ways - one is experiential. If you help someone navigate the end of their life, you will be more death literate by the end. We want you to have a good foundation of knowledge before you’re required to learn in real time. What started as a seed of an idea is now brewing into a public health project in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. We’re working with people working in the NHS and in Adult Social Care. We’re working with community groups, charities and schools.

Come and be a part of this death literacy revolution.

Keep Up to Date

Don’t miss out on announcements for our events. Please follow us and connect with our community on Instagram. I have to say, the death and grief community on Instagram is so lovely - warm, kind, compassionate humans.

If you have ideas for grants we should be applying for, companies or schools we should work with, or events you’d like us to organise please just reply to this email.

Thank you again for being part of Let’s Discuss Death.

Warmly,

Tilly Munro, Co-Founder