Shovelling off...

Photo: Picture: JULIAN TAYLOR

WHAT a way to go . . . George farmed all his life in Uppermill

A RETIRED farmer made a journey to his final resting place . . . in the shovel of a mechanical digger.

George Arthur Douglas Ardley (79) was carried to a snowbound churchyard at a dignified snail’s pace by driver Mick Harrington.

The dead man’s only living relative, cousin Glenys Henshaw (66) now lives in Betws-y-Coed with her husband, Geoff.

She said: “George was a really jovial man who loved a joke.

“He would have seen the funny side of this.”

Mr Ardley, a bachelor and an only child, was to be buried a week ago at Uppermill where he had farmed all his life.

But the first attempt to conduct his funeral service at Saddleworth Parish Church was postponed because the hearse could not to make its way through snow-clogged roads.

But on Wednesday, the funeral procession, accompanied by more than 50 mourners, went ahead. A pathway to the church itself was cleared by digger driver Mick, a father-of-two, from Diggle.

He was helped by Julian Taylor, landlord of the Church Inn, where the wake took place.

After the service, the coffin was transferred by pallbearers to the front shovel of the four-wheel drive tele-handler, which Mr Harrington had hired from Littleborough-based Mechplant to clear snow.

Mr Harrington (50), said: “There was no way the coffin could have got to the churchyard in the hearse. The snow was at least 2ft deep. The coffin was transferred to the front bucket of the digger by the pallbearers after the service and mourners followed behind. I drove to the cemetery in Gellfield Lane and helped carry the coffin to the grave. I knew George and he would have had a good laugh about it all.”

A spokesman for funeral directors, Pogson and Armitage, said: “It was decided after a discussion with the family, to deliver George by digger to the graveyard which was seen as very appropriate as he had been a farmer all his life.

“We know he would have seen the funny side.”