The most entertaining story to come out of my community in some time happened in the cemetary last week. An elderly woman had died, the township is in charge of cemetaries and our township man digs the graves(with a backhoe). He often digs the grave the evening before if the service is going to be early in the morning, in this case he dug the grave the evening before.
Don't know how you do it in the UK, but over here, at least in Kansas, the vault man comes out and puts the vault in the ground, along with the gizmo that lowers the casket into the grave. He also puts up a tent for the family. The vaultman shows up the next morning, and looks into the grave, and staring back up at him is a skunk.
I believe Markw told me you do not have skunks in the UK. A skunk for those who might not know is a fairly even tempered animal about the size of a cat. Their claim to fame is a gland beneath their tail that produces a very foul smelling liquid that they can shoot some distance, maybe 10 feet. Nasty nasty stuff. To illustrate how nasty(this is a waste of time if I remembered wrong and you do have skunks) a skunk sprayed a friend of mine when I was a kid, and he missed two days of school because he smelled so bad. You have to bathe in tomato juice to get the smell out. Another fellow I know had a skunk spray his dog next to his bedroom, outside the house. He happened to be Catholic, and was at Mass when he smelled a smell, and eventually realized it was him, the smell had gotten into his clothes in his closet from outside of the house.
So, with that background, it would help to explain why the vaultman was shaken, and called the funeral director, who was even more shaken. It would make for a most unpleasant graveside service if the skunk was to be irritated and induced to spray anywhere near the grave. The funeral director called Bobby, our township man, who came to the cemetary with a large plank, and put it into the grave like a ramp, in hopes the skunk would walk up and out of the grave, and leave the area, with his ammunition still intact. The skunk didn't grasp the idea, or didn't feel like leaving,because he made no attempt at all to walk up the plank and out of the grave.
So, the tent was set up at the other end of the cemetary, away from the skunk and the grave. When all the mourners had left, Bobby shot the skunk, threw a little dirt on top of it, and the dearly departed was lowered into the grave, to share it for all eternity with a skunk.