Comic recalls her first experience of death

Sara Pascoe has told of the day her father surprised her by bringing her dead cat to school in a bin bag.

Appearing on Kathy Burke’s death-based podcast Where There's A Will There's A Wake, the comic recalls how her dad – the jazz musician Derek Pascoe – tried to soften the blow with ice cream.

‘We had a cat run over,’ Sara explained. ’It was after our dad didn't live with us. He picked us up from school and he brought the cat in a bin bag. 

‘So that we wouldn't see it in the road, he put it in a bin bag. Then he brought it [to school].

‘He got us all a lemon ice from the ice-cream man outside school  and obviously that was amazing. So, he waited until we were licking the lemon ices and then went: "Cat’s dead, cat got run over".

‘It's odd, isn't it? Because as a child that death is the first time…’

And she added that while some parents wouldn’t grieve over a pet, to a child ‘They're a person.’

Burke replied: ‘I like the way he tried to soften the blow by getting you the lemon ice.’

And that prompted Pascoe to recall another incident. ‘He did the same thing when our granddad died; he got us all a cake, cream cake.

‘Again, it's that thing of [having] food in your mouth that you don't want all of a sudden.

‘Our granddad had cancer, so we knew it was near, and he got us all these amazing strawberry with cream tartlets and waited until we had all bitten in and then, "Ah, grandad’s died".

‘Stop doing this to us! Because I think he thinks that children are like, "Oh I’ve still got a cake" and that’ll cheer you up again.

Burke added: ‘I'd be terrified if he was my dad. You know, "Oh, I've got you some lollies". You'd be like, "Fuck, who’s gone?"’

• When There’s A Will There’s A Wake is available  on all podcast platforms, including Apple.

Published: 28 Mar 2023