There are many ways to discover a story – from the screen, from the written page or by the spoken word. Perhaps the latter is the best: to have a story told to you. That is the tradition that has kept civilisations alive around the world.

That is the way that this story came to me. As a story told to me by my father.

Winter has always been the busiest time of the year for undertakers. The cold and wet days and nights taking their toll on the more weak and vulnerable of the community.
So it was, some 50 years or so ago, (in the Northwest England town of Wigan) for Jeremiah Mort. He could not remember a week when business at his Funeral Home had been so brisk. Although it had been very financially rewarding, he was glad on that particular day, that it was time to make his last “collection.”

Night was drawing in as Jermiah and his longstanding assistant Henry approached the house that had been the home of old Charlie Scholes. Charlie had been a frail old man, (without any family that anyone knew about) who had been found by a concerned neighbour, dead, slumped forward in his favourite armchair.

Rigor mortis had begun to set in and, as they lifted him out of the chair, his stance gave the impression that, rather than dying in his chair, he had been frozen and then fallen backwards off a bicycle.

They decided that the best approach would be to get Charlie out of the house and into the hearse as quickly as possible. His posture could be dealt with later.
This wasn’t a problem. He was so light that in no time at all they had returned to the Funeral Home and had carried him into the back room, where they prepared the “clients” ready for the coffins.

They placed him on his back on the preparation table. In the dim  light of the room he made for a strange sight. While his back and his feet touched the table, his knees were raised and his arms reached up towards the ceiling. 

They decide  that they would have to straighten his limbs, sooner rather than later, to allow him to lie naturally and peacefully in his coffin.

They agreed that they should start with the legs.

Standing to the left of the table and facing Charlie’s feet, Jeremiah put both his hands just above  Charlie’s left knee and started to press down gently. Henry for his part was doing exactly the same, on the right of the table, with Charlie’s right leg. They had done this type of procedure before and unspeakingly worked in unison.

This approach was having little or no effect and so a little stronger pressure was applied, but again to no avail.

Jeremiah glanced at Henry and Henry glanced at Jeremiah. As one they both gave a good, swift, hard push down and success was achieved as the legs went down flat onto the table.

The other thing that this achieved was something that they hadn’t anticipated (as they were facing away from  the top half of Charlie). The force of pushing Charlie’s legs down catapulted Charlie’s upper torso into an upright sitting position with one hand tapping each of the men on the shoulder.

The details of what happened after that I do not know. That part of the story was never related to me.

I can only hope and assume that both mens hearts withstood the shock and that the only remedy that they required, was perhaps a change of underwear.

Other work by this author:

• Saucy Seaside Postcards
  
• Sunbathing on a Greek Island
• The Ghost in the Outside Toilet