Bob The Shrek's Undertaker Tales

Okay - checked with my brother and he concurs with me - bodies in the water don't explode, they just get bloated - unless they are in a Jaws movie and also swallow an aqua lung.

Remind me to tell you about the day I left a foot in the oven.

Tell us about the day you left a foot in the oven!

*pays attention*

Allright, I'm game.

What happened when you left your foot in the over?

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Bob The Shrek wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Okay - checked with my brother and he concurs with me - bodies in the water don't explode, they just get bloated - unless they are in a Jaws movie and also swallow an aqua lung.

Remind me to tell you about the day I left a foot in the oven.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the clarification, I can add that to my memory bank of 'Why CSI Is A Load Of Tosh'. So far, it's the body thing, the fact that they released and cremated a body before it was ID'd (duuhh) and the fact that they wear their Gucci suits and Manolo Blahniks into autopsies. Pfftt.

Now: the foot?

Got a call from the Coroner to pick up an old lady, who had died in a house fire, and take her to the public mortuary in Fulham, West London. It was about 10pm when me and Jim turned up at the house and staright away we knew it was going to be a messy one - all the police were standing outside in the pissing rain.

Jim went in first to have a quick look while I got the stretcher out of the van and got all the paperwork together. He came back out and said that the stretcher was a waste of time and get the plastic coffin, masks and gloves instead. We walked towards the house and I remarked, in a not so quiet voice, 'Trust our luck to get a fucking burner in this weather' - little did I know that who I thought was the plain clothes detective was, in fact, the old lady's son - ooops!

We went into the kitchen and sitting in a wheelchair was the largest barbeque spare rib I had ever seen. Apparently, the old lady (who only had one leg) basically lived in the kitchen and used to have the oven on, with the oven door open, to heat the kitchen up. The police reckon she had a heart attack and slumped in her wheelchair, causing it to move towards the oven and her remaining leg went into the oven. Over a period of time her body fat had heated, her clothes caught fire, then the kitchen and the rest of the house.

Now, she had already lost one leg, so when we took a look at her we didn't think it was so strange that her right foot was missing. Never gave it a second thought - especially as, when we tried to pick her up, she split open on the side of her torso and the insides were falling out. We had to put her back down, scoop the crap up and chuck it all in the plastic coffin along with the old lady. We had a quick word with the police, who were all still outside, to let them know where we were taking her and that was it, job done and back home for a fry up and cream cakes.

The next day the son came in and made enquiries about funeral arrangements. At the same time he made a comment about the oven and asked if someone could pop round and check it. As I had done the removal, I was nominated to go round to the house again. The first thing that struck me was that the son had blocked the kitchen door by jamming a chair under the door knob - despite the fact that half the building was missing and the other half was burnt to fuck! Sure enough, when I looked in the oven, there was her foot, half hidden amongst other shit in there. I hadn't bought any gloves with me and so I had to pick it up, wrap it in plastic and take it back to the funeral depot. We kept hold of the foot until the Coroner released the body.

I felt sorry for the son, in a way, because she had been burnt to buggery in the fire and then we charged him to do it again ;-)

How expensive is cremation, particularly when compared to a tradtional burial? Just shopping around.

Also, I've heard through various academic contacts of mine that England is undergoing a "crisis" in finding suitable burial spaces for an evergrowing population of dead people. Is that really the case?

I don't know about current prices because I haven't done it for so long. Cremation is normally cheaper than a burial becuase there are less fees to pay, no grave to dig and no headstone to pay for.

I imagine there is a crisis in finding consecrated, or churchyard, burials because of lack of space. However, burials in ordinary graveyards are a different matter. When you purchase a burial plot in a non-consecrated cemetery, you only buy that plot for 99 years. In theory, councils could dig up older graves and re-use that plot. In fact, there was outrage many years ago when a cemetery in South West London did just that and also smashed up the old headstones and used them to pave a pathway. Legally they had every right to do so, morally they fucked up.

Throw 'em in the Thames. Stupid name being spelt with a th but pronouced with a te..Bah. Back to the pavillion.

About 10+ years ago, we had a huge flood in the area. I remember the video footages of coffins and remains floating down the river. Sure upset alot of people, that flood did.

I remember seeing an episode of Quincy on the same subject.

If you chuck 'em in the Thames, they float downstream to the English Channel (La Manche for all you Europeans), except they don't really make it that far...mostly they wash up in Gravesend...which is how it got its name.