Son is burying his aristocrat mum in the back garden to save money – and is planning to store her body in a huge fridge
He began digging the 4ft grave this week but may have to store her body in a large fridge from eBay to save funeral home costs
A PENSIONER was so outraged by funeral costs for his late aristocrat mother he has started digging a grave for her in his back garden.
John Wright, 71, is in the process of digging a 4ft-deep hole at his home in Hampshire to lay his mother, Lady Margaret Johnson, to rest.
She died aged 101 on June 3, two years after suffering a stroke, and her son was told he would need to stump up £5,300 to give her a proper funeral - at which point he started to make other plans.
Mr Wright has said that if the grave is not ready promptly, he may be forced to buy a large fridge from eBay to keep Lady Johnson's body in to avoid incurring further fees from the funeral directors.
He began digging on Tuesday but found the hot weather and hard ground a challenge, so the project was taking longer than he had expected.
Mr Wright, a retired employment lawyer, said he had looked on the internet to find the regulations for the grave.
He said: "I've checked online and the plot needs to be at least 2ft deep. I'll dig about 4ft down to cover it.
"It won't need supports as there's no real danger of it caving in because it is not in a proper graveyard and it's not near a water course.
"The ground is very hard because of all the recent hot weather, we need a bit of rain really. It's very hard work and it is taking me longer than I expected.
"My mother's body is still at the funeral director's so I may need to buy a fridge from eBay or the local electrical shop to put in my garage to put it in while I finish digging.
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"This is just pure desperation. If a few days ago someone had told me I'd be doing this next week I would have said they were mad."
It is legal to bury someone on private land in the UK as long as the person doing so has permission from the landowner and the General Register Office - the Government body which records births, deaths and marriages.
However if he wants to add a grave stone he would need to apply for planning permission, and if he were to move house he would have no legal rights to visit the grave.
Mr Wright elaborated on his decision: "Obviously when people lose someone their minds are all in a daze and they really want to get it done - the funeral firms take advantage of that situation.
"People feel as if they are under pressure and that's what they exploit. The price for a hearse to go to the chapel is £2,500 alone.
"I feel as if I am being blackmailed, harassed and intimidated into paying these very high costs. As far as I am concerned the funeral firms pinch and strip every penny out of your pocket. They are just a cartel.
"These garden burials are the sort of thing that may well become the norm for a very substantial number of people."
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