Joanna Nell on her heart-warming story celebrating life and love in, 'The Funeral Crashers'

Retired academic Martin Pottinger's romantic aspirations for the delectable head of his former university's archaeology department, Professor Mary Blake, seem about to be realised. If only he could devise a plan to manage the demands of his eccentric elderly mother, Edwina. Recently bereaved Grace Cavendish spends her days helping out at All Souls Church, making it her mission to drown out the Reverend Rod's tone-deaf hymn-singing and give each funeral recipient a hearty send-off. Yet the peace she craves remains elusive despite the comforts offered by psychic medium Rhondda and her eight-year-old son, Hudson. When Martin and Grace meet and bond at an All Souls service, they unwittingly set off a chain of events with far-reaching consequences. They become funeral crashers. But who could have predicted that crashing funerals might have such life-changing and life-affirming outcomes? In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Joanna Nell about how funerals are not just a stage in the grieving process, her role as a GP in aged care and advocacy for ageing positively, and creating stories and characters that reflect the realities of later life.