As we enter the autumn season, many a woman’s thoughts turn to the contents of her wardrobe.
But Sue Perkins has revealed the surprising thing taking up a lot of space in her own particular armoire: ashes.
‘Full of ashes, so many ashes,’ she said: ‘I’ve still got half of Dad, all of a Labrador, all of a Staffordshire bull terrier and two beagles.’
She made the confession on latest edition of the death-themed Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake podcast, hosted by her long-term double act partner Mel Giedroyc.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ Mel asked of the sizeable collection of remains. ‘Got to make some plans, old girl.’
Sue explained: ‘Dad's been spread liberally in a lot of Cornwall and I didn't realise how much ash there is. There's a lot, so we've got to work [it] out, because sadly he hadn't made any specific requests in his actual will.
‘We were going off what he said to us as he was deteriorating, but because his mind was affected by the disease he was suffering from, it changed every day.
‘So it was like, "come on old girl, bury me under the apple tree". Then it was under the magnolia, then it was in the sea. Then it was, "I want to go in Croydon Whitgift Centre", which is very, very hard to organise…’
She suggested she might even write a short film based on spreading her Dad’s ashes in Cornwall.
‘Essentially he'd been left in quite a damp environment and so the ashes had slightly coagulated.
‘And there was a lot of argy-bargy between me and my sister because when we started we spread them in order of seniority. So my mum went first and then I did a bit… and then my sister went "don't give him all at once"… It was classic sisters, you know.
"Suddenly I went, "well, this is exactly how I wanted to spread my dad's ashes with you just barking at me!"
‘But as I said, it was a lot of him, and we couldn't quite get him out as it was clumping a lot.
‘I walked around the corner and found my brother using a drill just with the whirring thing and trying to break up the ashes with a tea towel round the drill. He was just like trying to loosen [them]. And I just stared at him and he stared back. We just thought, "this is just exhausting, isn't it?"’
On the podcast, Sue also confessed to ‘relentless’ shoplifting in her teenage years. recalling one particular technique she deployed at the local newsagent.
‘I took my brother in, who's much younger than me, and I would put him in a parka, even though it was warm outside, with a big hood. And I would offload Yorkie bars onto his hood – until the day we were caught and he was collared. He just cried. I remember just sobbing, didn't know what he'd done.
‘And I remember his head being quite pulled back with the weight of confectionery that I'd put in it. I left him there. It's awful – and it still remains a bone of contention.’
