Panda to your Every Desire (17 page)

OUR SCOTTISH funeral stories remind a reader of attending one such service where the poignancy of the occasion was enhanced by a lone piper playing a lament outside the church as the mourners went in.

The moment was perhaps spoiled, she tells us, by a colleague of the deceased, who had flown up from London, who muttered as he saw the piper: “Damn buskers. Don’t they know there’s a time and a place?”

WE ASKED for your funeral stories, and Annie McQuiston recalls: “We were attending an elderly great aunt’s funeral and the CD was playing ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’. All very solemn as the curtains closed at the crematorium until the next song came belting out, which was ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’.

“May just request this for my own.”

AND FRANCES WOODWARD in Mirfield, Yorkshire, recalls: “My friend worked for an undertakers and was told a wee wummin would come in for a last look at her husband before committal the next day, and would she be alright taking her down to the viewing room?

“Duly complying with this, she was startled when the woman asked for the teeth back he had in his mouth, as they shared them and she wanted to wear them at the funeral.”

RUSSELL SMITH tells us: “I was told by a minister friend that as the curtains closed and the coffin began to disappear during a service in the crematorium, a voice wafted up, ‘That’s me away then.’

“This turned out to be an employee who had asked to leave early to play a snooker match and had been told he could leave as soon as that part of the proceedings ended.”

ALISTAIR FULTON tells us of the butcher who asked for the Johann Sebastian Bach cantata “Schafe können sicher weiden” to be played at his funeral. It is known in English of course as “Sheep May Safely Graze”.

And Catol Bannon tells us: “I attended a cremation where the family had chosen ‘Don’t Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ from the film
High Noon
as this was a particular favourite of the deceased.

“However, at the crucial moment, just as the coffin was going slowly past, the attendant had selected the wrong track on the CD and out boomed, ‘Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, keep them dawgies rollin’…”’

VALERIE LANG tells us about attending a service at a Lanarkshire crematorium, where the snow and ice made the car park treacherous. Says Valerie: “Exchanging pleasantries with a lady in the hushed waiting room, I raised the subject of the weather conditions, to which she replied, ‘I know. You’d think they’d put ashes down or something.’

“The look of horror that crossed her face was followed by stifled giggles by all those around.”

OUR MENTION of eulogies reminds Gus Furrie in East Kilbride of being at a funeral where the minister described the deceased as being a chief petty officer in the navy when he was younger.

Gus heard a voice in the pew behind him muttering: “Goodness, he’s been promoted since he died.”

OUR TALE of the church service reminds Gerry Burke in Dumbarton of the yarn: “Wee fella, returning home in back seat of the car in surly, uncommunicative mood after baby sister’s baptism in local church, resists repeated attempts by dad to source the problem. Finally, in high dudgeon, the lad explains, ‘The priest said he was glad we were going to be brought up in a nice, Christian home. But I want to stay with you.”’

WE ARE always impressed by the lengths the clergy will go to at funerals in order to be as positive as they can about the departed. An Ayrshire reader tells us she witnessed her parish priest trying to get round the infrequent visits to church by the deceased, by declaring in his eulogy: “Mary never completely lost her faith – she never missed an edition of
Songs of Praise
.”

A READER says when he was at Sunday School he thought the teacher had said that Jesus had been put to his death, not by Pontius Pilate, but an “unconscious pilot”.

“Until I was twelve,” he tells us, “I thought Jesus had died in a helicopter accident.”

WHEN the Christian period of Lent started we were reminded of the chap in the Glasgow pub being asked by mates what he was giving up for Lent.

“My New Year’s resolutions,” he replied.

THE MINISTER at Motherwell South Church was introducing the story of Samson and Delilah to the children in the congregation and, trying to involve them as much as possible, she asked: “What do you know about Samson?” Alas the story of the hair cut didn’t immediately come to mind with one young lad who, trying to remember where he thought he had seen the name before, put up his hand and shouted: “He made oor telly miss.”

WE ASKED for your Scottish wedding stories, and Rev. James MacEwan at Abernethy Parish Church tells us: “Some years ago I was conducting a wedding in the church in Advie, near Grantown-on-Spey.

“A small child was competing with me for the ears of the congregation and took his mother’s full attention.

“Just as I asked if anyone knew any reason why the couple could not lawfully be joined in marriage, the mother rose to exit with her child.

“Every head turned in alarm.”

JIM GRIER in Saltcoats tells us about a recent wedding in Ayrshire where the nervous bride, struggling to keep a steady hand while signing the register, was advised by the minister that it might help if she put her weight on it. After the ceremony, the minister noticed that after her signature she had added “8st 7lb”.

SCOTTISH rhyming slang that doesn’t travel. Rosy Gillies on Arran tells us her gran was working in an Ayrshire hotel where an English couple were staying before going to a local wedding. When she asked where the wedding was, the English chap replied: “Some place called the Pineapple – sounds quite posh.”

Rosy’s gran felt duty bound to explain to them that it was actually the local chapel where the ceremony was taking place.

THE POPE arrived in Glasgow, and reader Jennifer Wilkie reminisces about her father-in-law building a wooden altar for the previous Pope when he visited a hospital near Edinburgh. After dismantling it, he cut it into 10in pieces, varnished them, branded “Pope John Paul stood here” on them and gave them to charities to auction. Unfortunately, says Jennifer, demand was so high that he had to sneak off to B&Q to buy more wood, and his grandson has now worked out that the wooden altar must have covered about fourteen square miles to accommodate all the pieces.

ALL THIS talk of Glasgow and religion reminds a reader of the classic – that is, old – yarn of the charismatic preacher visiting Glasgow. He asked a young man in the congregation what was bothering him. “My hearing,” the chap replied.

So the preacher laid his hands over the young fellow’s ears, asked the congregation to pray with him to God, took his hands away and asked the man: “How is your hearing now?”

“I don’t know,” the chap replied. “I’m not due at the sheriff court until tomorrow.”

IAN DEUCHAR in Milngavie tells us: “A group of seniors fore-gathered at my local golf club when someone asked if we were looking forward to watching the Royal Wedding.

“I said I had a garden wall to paint, and another old boy asked if he could come and watch my paint drying.”

A GLASGOW reader watching the American news channel CNN on his telly got annoyed when they referred to Prince William and his girlfriend Kate meeting in “St Andrews, England”.

He thought about complaining, he says, until every student they interviewed there was an “uppperclass English oik giving it yahoo” so decided not to bother.

“DID YOU see the interview with Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex,” said the chap in the pub, “where she said that missing the Royal Wedding was difficult?”

“I know what she means,” replied his pal. “It seemed to be on every sodding channel.”

A YOUNG lady phones to tell us how to work out if you are posher than new royal bride Kate Middleton.

The formula apparently is to multiply your weekly glasses of wine by the number of Apple products you own, then subtract your total number of tattoos multiplied by the number of missing teeth.

WITH that wedding in London, Americans were showing their interest in the royal family.

Glasgow-born talk show host in America Craig Ferguson told his audience: “Queen Elizabeth has turned eighty-five. There was an awkward moment when she closed her eyes to make a wish and Prince Charles asked, ‘Is she dead?”’

THE ROYAL Wedding gags are now in abundance. “I’ve just bought a lovely Prince Charles commemorative teapot,” phones one reader.

“It never reigns, but it pours.”

READERS enjoyed the news story about Prince William visiting the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde and the chief petty officer who, when asked by the prince what it was like serving on submarines, replied: “There are ups and downs.”

There could never be a book about Scottish humour that missed out sport.

A MEMBER of staff at John Smith’s university bookshop in Glasgow took an order from a Chinese student named Wan Fan.

He thought that the fact he lived in the student village next to Partick Thistle’s ground at Firhill was particularly apposite.

FORMER Aberdeen footballer Duncan Shearer tells in his autobiography,
Shearer Wonderland
, of six players on a pre-season trip to Austria being fined for staying out boozing until four in the morning.

Duncan was feeling smug when he phoned his wife as he was not one of the six.

Instead, the first thing she asked was how come he and pal Billy Dodds were not involved as it was not like them to miss a good night out, so what had they been up to?

IAN BARNETT tells us: “Former referee Willie Young was guest speaker at a golf day at Old Prestwick when he told of a man two up with three to play in the club championship.

“His phone rang and the police told him his wife had been found hanging on the washing line in his garden.

“After some thought he told them: ‘Thanks for that. If it rains can you bring her in?”’

OUR MENTION of football ground humour reminds Keddie Law in Montrose of when Dundee played Celtic in the SPL on the last game of the season in which they had already been relegated. Celtic fans sang the Vera Lynn classic: “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.”

BARRIE CRAWFORD tells us: “When I took the referees’ course, we were told of a linesman officiating at Fir Park who raised his flag to indicate that a Motherwell player was offside.

“From the terracing behind him came the exhortation, ‘Haw, linesman, stick the flag up yer ****!’

“The said linesman turned round and addressed his abuser with, ‘Ah canny … it’s full of whistles.”’

A MEMBER of the Tartan Army was heard complaining: “When I’m getting amorous with the wife, I used to tell her to lie back and think of Scotland.

“But that just gets us both really depressed these days.”

MANCHESTER UNITED boss Sir Alex Ferguson, giving a lecture on leadership at the esteemed Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, told his audience of a quiz between coaching staff and players on a foreign trip.

The coaches were leading with one question to go, when the players were asked which artist painted
Sunflowers
.

Given the blank looks from the players, the coaches were confident of victory, only for former player Nicky Butt to shout out: “Van Gogh!”