death

I was an assistant at a school in France in 1967. On Whit Saturday I was at a party in Paris with a nuber of student teachers. A violent thunderstorm disrupted the evening, electricity was cut and it was 11pm before we sat down to eat. Someone had had to leave and we were 13 to sit down; the superstitious host said someone was in for some bad luck and insisted on having an empty 14th chair. The following Wednesday - the post was fast in those days, I received a letter from my mother to say that my grandfather had died in the night; she suggested I did not return home as I would not be able to make it in time for the funeral. As this was my first family bereavement I chose to go back to North Wales, travelling overnight and getting there early afternoon. I went to my grandfather's shop expecting to find my family there - it was closed. When I reached the house the whole family was gathered for the funeral - a double funeral, as my grandmother had died later on Whit Sunday unaware that her husband had passed away earlier in the day. A telephone would probably have made life easier but it would not have altered the timings of the events.