There’s a lovely story in today’s Mail about the funeral of a runaway solicitor, Andrew Paterson, who died from a heart attack on the beach at (nice way to) Goa.
Paterson was on the run from the old bill. Had been since 1987 when the long arm almost caught up with him in the matter of a bit of dodgy dealing.
Once abroad, Paterson changed his name to Mark Attwood and made a flagrant fortune building holiday resorts in exotic places. He married three times, fathered six children and was loved by all who knew him.
His last wish was to be buried in the churchyard of his tiny home village of Begelly in Wales. So his wife (#3) brought him home and all went to plan until… the coppers rocked up. Finally they had their man! They let the funeral go ahead, but intervened before he could be buried. They took Mr Paterson away for fingerprinting, for, in their own words, ‘Andrew Paterson failed to attend Guildford Crown Court on October 13 in 1987 to answer conspiracy to defraud charges and a warrant is still outstanding.’ Having made sure they’d got their man, albeit posthumously, they let the burial go ahead.
He must have been a hell of a good guy. His funeral was attended by every one of his six children and each of his three wives.
That’s his grave at the top.
Full story here.
For no good reason I recall this Tommy Copper joke: The police arrested two kids yesterday. One was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other off.
Brilliant! What a fabulous comment on the pointless beaurocracy that threatens to strangle our already suffocating world – please will you have me arrested at my funeral?
(Oh, and nice Freudian slip with the comedian’s name there Charles.)
Tcha!
I suppose this brings a whole new meaning to the expression ‘closure.’ They had to know if the deceased was their man? Many years ago, a funeral director I know, lost his mobile telephone. He discovered it, as his men carried the coffin into a local crematorium. It was of course, ringing inside the sealed coffin. It had fallen from his shirt pocket as he hurriedly closed the coffin, prior to leaving his chapel for the crematorium. Thankfully for our man, the mourners all assumed the phone was in someone’s pocket, not the casket. Once the funeral service had taken… Read more »
Charles – so why didn’t ‘jack and jill’ aka ‘the old bill’ do the necessary at the funeral home rather than err late in the day?
andrew
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