You couldn’t make it up

You couldn’t make it up. The Express could, perhaps, given its record for libelling people. Here is the essence of their story in today’s paper.

First, the headline: Three Orphans Sell Pets To Pay For Mum’s Funeral.

Got yer pulse racing? It’s right up there on a par with Headless Waiter Found In Topless Bar (New York Post).

Troy, 17, Rory, 15, and Alice, 14, are flogging all they’ve got to raise £2,500 for the funeral of their mum. “The youngsters have so far raised £525 by selling their beloved spaniels Peggy, Minnie and Sammy – for which they got a total of £250 – and some furniture from their council house in Whittlesey, Cambs.” Next to go is the Xbox. Troy says “We can’t face mum having a pauper’s funeral. We’re not asking for a lavish affair but she deserves a few flowers and a nice send-off.”

The funeral directors insist on having the money upfront. They offered to knock 200 quid off by squeezing the body into a smaller coffin, but the kids refused.

Enough!

What a shame it is that the people who feel duty-bound to spend more than they can afford on a funeral are so often those who can least afford it. No one calls those middle-class, cardboard coffin funerals paupers’ funerals.

Read the whole sorry story here — if you can bear.