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.