A housing support worker gives a personal account of the time when two of the tenants he was supporting died within three weeks of each other. All names have been changed. 

I just wanted to go back and look at the body. I felt fascinated by the death. There was a curious stillness. The smell was over powering, but not distinguishable from any other smell I had noticed previously. I had suggested earlier to John about home care, he replied that his flat was clean. After all my visits, I had gone away with a taste in my mouth, which lasted several days and was redolent of a public urinal.

My colleague telephoned for an ambulance. I tried to think of things I needed to do, so I took meter readings. However, my wish to keep looking at John’s body was strong. We sat outside the flat and waited for the ambulance. I remembered the a previous visit I had made, he told me to “F**k Off!” I was shocked, for I did not believe that a frail man born before the start of the First World War, would swear like a trooper! More so because I had built a good relationship with John, I believed. I had retired gracefully and visited once more before finding John’s body.

The police arrived followed by an ambulance, John being pronounced dead, arrangements were made for his body to be removed. The police officer asked about John’s relatives. Sadly, we knew nothing of them or if he had any surviving. The Coroner’s Officer was obliged to place an advertisement for relatives, which brought forward John’s daughter. This was not before I had been to John’s flat with the Officer and removed any valuables. I was made starkly aware of the appaling conditions John had chosen to live in, more so than on any other visit.

John’s cremation was at a crematorium on the edge of Leeds. The Priest, from what I remember, gave a very moving and poignant sermon. A colleague and I had taken a large bouquet of flowers with us to the cremation, which seemed bigger than any brought by John’s family much to our chagrin. We spoke briefly with his family, before and after the ceremony, they reported that John had chosen to end contact with his family many years ago. We left after the ceremony. I had brief contact with John’s daughter, helping her with John’s financial affairs.

Some three weeks later another tenant Peter did not turn up to our meeting at a pub as he had always done before. I walked down the road. Had he just alighted from a bus? Two beggars confronted me. The man asking me for money, but I answered before he had finished speaking. The woman got angry at my early response and insulted me. I felt ever more concerned that there was something wrong with Peter.

I visited Peter the next morning. I could not get a reply. Was I panicking unnecessarily? Was there cause for concern? What should I do? On a later visit, again I could not get a response. I thought I could see someone in bed, through the ground floor bedroom window, but any amount of banging on the window produced no response.  I telephoned my office and spoke with a manager. The same questions again. Was I panicking? Was I over reacting? Was there cause for concern? While waiting for a colleague to come out I checked Peter’s front door and found it locked by a security lock that could only be operated on from the inside, so someone was on the property, probably Peter and there was something wrong with them that made it impossible for them to respond. I hoped I was wrong.

A colleague arrived and I went through the checks I had made, just to check my logic. She agreed with my analysis. The police arrived promptly. Again, I ran through the evidence, with which they could find no fault. I hoped all the time I was wrong. They again tried banging on the bedroom window to no effect. They broke in through the ground floor living room window.

We waited some time and they unlocked the door and said that Peter was dead in bed. “Could I see the body?” “Yes.” I went in and saw Peter’s body face down on his bed never seeing Peter’s face. Upon seeing Peter’s body a neighbour exclaimed “What have you done Peter?” I gave some details about Peter to the Officers, but again, almost automatically, I went around and took meter readings.

Peter’s body lay in rest at the Funeral Directors for two weeks before his burial, but I never did go and see it. I still occasionally wonder if it was Peter, I had seen dead in bed. The funeral was attended by what seemed like a football crowd. However, the Priest lacked the panache of the previous funeral. Attending on my own, I met some of Peter’s friends I knew, his two sisters, brother and father. I had had some telephone contact with one of Peter’s sisters after his death. She had heard some disturbing stories about the nature of his death and I was able to squash these stories.

Most of us, then went to Peter’s local for a ‘wake’, Peter having died of sclerosis of the liver caused by many years of heavy drinking, it seemed a very fitting venue. I stayed most of the day and was bought several drinks by Peter’s sisters, who thanked me for all the work I had done with Peter. The welcome that Peter’s family afforded me was wonderful and I felt privileged to be included in their circle.

Peter had said, given that he had attended to many funerals before his own death, that if he died felt he had had an eventful life and was “happy to go”. Thus, I was struck by the contrast between to the two funerals. The first funeral was somehow sad and empty and the second full and sorrowful. At some selfish level, I was please that the deaths were near and that Peter died after John, for if my last memory had been of John’s funeral I believe I would have been left with a longer period of sadness. In addition, I regret that I did not go with John’s family to their funeral tea. I am sure I would have been welcome. Helping John and Peter after they died, in practical ways comforted me, this, also, relieved their families a burden.