Festival blog

Beer mat chat

Earlier this year, a friend and I were in a pub in Rose Street and somehow, I can’t remember how, the subject got round to people we each used to know, but who are no longer with us – because they’ve died. I talked about Chris – I remembered how he loved going up hills. He had legs about 8 foot long and never seemed to get out of breath. I’d be sweating and gasping like pig behind him. He was like a dog let off the lead whenever he got on the hill. One time he did his ankle, and it was pitch black before we got down. I often think about him if I’m walking on a hill somewhere.

It is weird – most of the time in the pub we chat about the usual stuff – footy, holidays, work... But this made a change, it was good.

At work the next day, we got thinking about the To Absent Friends festival in November, and how for many of us, pubs are a pretty natural place to chat about all kinds of things, including our memories of friends of family who are dead.

So, we set up a crowd-funding website with the hope of funding some beer mats to get conversations around to the subject of celebrating and remembering the lives of dead loved ones.

Luckily, it turned out we weren't the only ones that thought that it was a good idea, and we've managed to get enough money together to produce beermats in time for To Absent Friends this November.

Would you like to see the finished product? Check them out here. Get in touch and we'll send you some, if you promise to leave them in a pub, a café, staff room or canteen so that others can see them too.

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