I had a spot of déjà-vu at work last week.
If you have read a few of these columns you may remember my favourite customers are the Fordhams.
By sheer chance I came across their cousins from the Wirral – Mr and Mrs Church. Unlike the Fordhams, the Churches liked to make token payments to their mortgage; ten pounds here, ten pounds there.
Mrs Church is a hardy soul and had been through a lot. Mr Church had had a near fatal aneurysm, which had caused the arrears on their account to develop.
Mrs Church sounded like she was manfully coping with difficult circumstances.
She then advised us that Mr Church was recovered – enough to attempt to murder her.
Apparently, he had tried to strangle her. Now he was safely sectioned under the Mental Health Act and unable to er… pay the mortgage.
A year later Mr Church was evidently recovered, out of the secure unit and back in work.
We knew this because Mrs Church told us he had been critically injured in a road traffic accident; he hadn’t looked both ways.
Then he died.
Mrs Church advised us she was going to be a wealthy widow.
Then Mr Church wasn’t dead.
It had seemed as though he wasn’t going to pull through, but in actual fact he was in a coma and remained so for eight months.
It was touch and go whether they were going to switch off his life support machine. Mrs Church wasn’t particularly bothered about speaking to us and promised to send us medical documents whenever it looked like her house might be repossessed.
Eventually, a call to Mr Church’s factory allowed us to speak to him. He was working and hadn’t had a day off in about five years.
Obviously, the coma had worn off.
Bearing in mind that he really might have tried to murder Mrs Church, we didn’t speak to him directly and are waiting to talk to Mrs Church to see what she has to say.
It happens more often than you think; your loved one racks up huge bills or arrears and you are none the wiser.
So, if money always seems to be tight, but little luxuries are still available at home, I’d check the post if I were you.
