THE GREENGROCER’S FUNERAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 30 January 1933, Page 3

THE GREENGROCER’S FUNERAL

A STRANGE ENGAGEMENT “I was spending the week-end in a provincial town recently. Opening the local paper on Monday morning the following advertisement caught my eye: ‘Wanted, a number of people either sex, for two hours’ work on Thursday afternoon. Fee, one guinea. Apply Box Previously I had no intention of being in that town on the following Thursday, but I became curious, and, having a nose for news, I decided to apply. The same evening I received a card inviting me to call at an address in the High Street. I did this the following morning, and found myself in a queue outside an undertaker’s establishment. Eventually my turn came. I was told that my presence would be required on the following Thursday afternoon at the funeral of a well-known local man. I was to appear in black, or the darkest clothes I possessed; a wreath would be given mo to carry, and black kid gloves would be provided; what size did I take? I would receive my fee at the undertaker’s office after the funeral. Naturally, I was more interested in the whys and wherefores of such a strange engagement, but remembering the length of the queue outside, decided that this, at any rate, was no time to satisfy my curiosity. I promised to attend. Within a few hours I knew all I wanted to know about' this strange funeral. it appeared that the deceased, a greengrocer, was a widower with one son who was a gambler, and the family fortune, amounting to about £25.000, had been left by his wife to her husband while he lived, and what remained to the son afterwards. So determined was the old man that nothing should remain, he had given instructions to the undertaker to employ 20,000 people at a guinea each to attend his funeral, and to purchase gloves, wreaths, etc., with the balance of the cash. Tt was the largest funeral ever seen in the Midlands, and when 1 got back to London I posted a cheque for a guinea to the unlucky son. In a few days he wrote back thanking me for my kind consideration, but explaining that the money had done him no good because Gingerbread was not in the first three.”—“The Times of Malta.”