Family has left gran’s ashes at same funeral directors for 56 years

A family has been thinking about what to do with the ashes of a relative for over half a century – and still haven’t made up their minds yet.

Funeral director David Parslow has revealed that a man putting together his family tree approached him 18 months ago to check records on his grandma, who died in 1967.

The company handed over the woman’s name and date of death, but had no record of where she was buried or where her ashes were scattered.

After looking into it further, it was discovered that the ashes had never been collected, as the family had told undertakers they ‘couldn’t decide’ what to do with them.

Mr Parslow, a director of Walter C Parson Funeral Directors in Plymouth, said he ‘couldn’t believe’ they were still being held by the firm.

But he has been left even more taken aback as the family is still yet to pick them up – nearly 56 years after she died.

‘I called the man and told him, and asked him if they’d decided what they would like to do, and he said “No not yet, we’re still thinking about it”’, Mr Parslow said.

Just over half of British people scatter their loved one’s ashes, according to a Cost of Dying report from insurance firm SunLife.

One hundred funeral directors and 1,500 Brits who had recently organised a funeral were questioned in a survey.

It also revealed the unconventional things that some people do with their family member’s ashes.

Some have them made into fireworks, while others use them in tattoos or put them into jewellery and lucky charms.

A spokesman for SunLife said: ‘We asked people what they’d done with their loved one’s ashes, and found that half of those we asked scattered the ashes, with 27% keeping them and 21% burying them.

‘Some of the most popular places to scatter a loved one’s ashes were the local park, at sea, in a river or lake – and on a beach.

‘A total of 2% said they had scattered the ashes in a sports venue.’

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