Tuesday 5 March 2013

I Can’t Help But Feel There’s A Solution To This…

…not necessarily an elegant one, though:
Grieving relatives of 7ft 2in tall Graham Mellor face a 70-mile round trip to pay their last respects – because his coffin is too long for North Staffordshire's crematoriums.
Unusually in this day and age, the family aren't demanding compensation for the ‘hardship and insult’. Quite the opposite:
Graham's cousin Sharon Edwards, aged 47, of Beverley Drive, Bentilee, below, said: "I have never heard anything like this before. "I am completely taken aback and it hasn't quite sunk in yet.
"It will have to be a two-day funeral which makes things quite awkward. But it is nobody's fault. He is an exceptional case because of his height and the funeral directors have been great in trying to organise the ceremony."
Refreshing, isn't it?

6 comments:

Mike Power said...

Presumably his knees still bend, don't they? Jeez, he's going to be incinerated anyway!

Tatty said...

Bend his knees and make it a one day service for crying out loud.

Dr Cromarty said...

My brother needed an extra large American-style casket which the undertakers supplied at the same cost as the normal coffin. I can still remember the words the bluff Yorkshire undertaker used:"You said he was big, not that he was built like King King!".

Could have been construed as offensive but lightened a grim situation.

Anonymous said...

A tall story.....
Jaded

Ian Hills said...

Is it actually an offence to break a tall corpse up into smaller pieces?

JuliaM said...

"Presumably his knees still bend, don't they?"

But who makes fatter coffins? Actually, probably they do!

"Could have been construed as offensive but lightened a grim situation."

Indeed!

"Is it actually an offence to break a tall corpse up into smaller pieces?"

Not if you are an NHS hospital...