Welcome to 'This Is The North' Podcast, your source of transformative conversations. An intentional challenge to the systems holding back the North of England. Hosted by Alison Dunn, an award-winning charity chief executive and former solicitor. This podcast is supported by the Society Matters Foundation and is dedicated to curating and sharing knowledge, powering the change we need for a more equal and inclusive society.

One in 29 children in every classroom have been bereaved of a parent or sibling, carrying grief that most adults struggle to talk about. Meanwhile, in medical training, there's a belief that "as healthcare professionals, we all feel a profound sense of failure when one of our patients dies." Over the last hundred years, death moved from homes to hospitals. We handed it to professionals. In doing so, we lost the language, the confidence, and the community knowledge that once made dying something we did together.

In this episode, Alison sits down with Julian Prior from Compassionate Gateshead, Dr. Elizabeth Woods, a palliative care consultant, and Karen Perry, an end-of-life doula, to have the conversation we're often too scared to have: what happens when we lose the ability to talk about death? Their conversation reveals families who no longer recognise the signs of dying. People told their loved one is dying four, five, six times, each time treatment works, feeding a cycle that says you can fix this.

The conversation captures what policy discussions miss. Death cafes in Newcastle that fill up every month, where strangers cut through small talk in minutes to discuss what they lack in their daily lives: depth, meaning, honest conversation about mortality. Community knowledge that used to exist on every street, now having to be taught by consultants walking families through what normal dying actually looks like.

Alison and her guests explore what happens when we can't say the word "died," why medication struggles to control what fear is doing, and how communities are remembering that dying isn't something we fear alone but something we face together. They discuss the inequalities that compound at end of life—the cost of wills, lasting powers of attorney, funerals arriving when families are already struggling. Why teachers need resources to support that one child in every classroom carrying grief.

The conversation examines what Compassionate Gateshead is building: a network connecting organisations supporting asylum seekers, people with dementia, young people who've lost loved ones, workplaces trying to support bereaved employees. The Festival of Compassion running all February with workshops, films, and death cafes creating permission and space to talk.

Death will happen to us all. The question is whether we'll face it alone, unprepared, fearful and silent, or whether we'll face it together, with language, with confidence, with community.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

01:00 Understanding End-of-Life Doulas

03:38 Building Compassionate Communities

07:02 The Medicalisation of Death

10:34 What Families Actually Fear

13:01 What Normal Dying Looks Like

18:18 Death Cafes and Community Spaces

26:56 Inequalities That Compound

40:12 The Festival of Compassion

41:49 Final Reflections

Host: Alison Dunn

Guests: Julian Prior, Dr. Elizabeth Woods, Karen Perry

Learn more about Compassionate Gateshead and the Festival of Compassion here.

This podcast is produced by Purpose Made.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.