Urban Legends
'WHAT A WAY TO GO!'

Urban Legends

WHAT A WAY TO GO!

An Irish folk musician who was brought up near Oldham in Lancashire eventuallymarried and with his wife, returned to the Emerald Isle. She also was amusician and together, they opened a music centre in a small town on thewest coast of Ireland.

While still relatively young, he had said to his wife and friends that whenhe died, he wanted to be cremated and have half of his ashes scattered overthe music centre and the remainder over a specific location on SaddleworthMoor, a bleak area of the Pennines, close to the Lancashire/Yorkshireborder and near to where he grew up. His friends, while saying that he wasfar too young to be thinking such morbid thoughts, agreed to carry out hisrequest.

Around Easter time in 2001, a fire broke out at the music centre andin it, he lost his life. Remembering his wishes, the first part of his requestwas carried out. However, when they came back to Saddleworth to complete thetask, his friends discovered that because of that year's devastating Foot & Mouth outbreak, the party were refused access to the farm land onSaddleworth Moor where they had promised to scatter the ashes. They consideredhiring a helicopter, but the cost was too high.

And then determined to carry out their friend's wishes, they had a stroke ofinspiration. One of the group went to a local garden centre and purchased thelargest sky rocket that he could find. He removed the nose-cone, filled thecavity with the ashes and replaced the cone. Then getting as close as possibleto the target area, they drove a short length of drainpipe into the ground toact as a launcher. The rocket tail was then placed into the pipe.

Being musicians, they played a suitable Irish lament, said a few appropriatewords and lit the touch paper. The rocket soared into the sky, high over theprescribed field where it exploded in a spectacular display of coloured stars.The cloud of ashes slowly descended to earth, perfectly scattered in exactlythe desired location! Mission completed!

To the best of our knowledge this is a true story! - Well we wouldn't lie toyou - would we?
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