In Loving Memory

- Season 1

(1979)

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Ivy Unsworth runs the undertakers in the 1920s village of Oldsham with her drunken, greedy husband Jeremiah and daft young nephew Billy. Business is not exactly booming and the loss of a coffin and its late occupant in the river does not help matters. However, when Jeremiah goes the same way, Ivy sees a chance to make a go of things Under New Management.

Ivy learns that Jeremiah has left her everything -on condition she gives a home to his demanding sister Gladys, a professional hypochondriac who runs Ivy ragged. Fortunately thanks to Ivy's old costume as an angel in the village nativity play Gladys believes that her days at the funeral home are numbered and makes a swift departure.

Perturbed that no woman wants to date him when they find out that he is an undertaker Billy lies to the charming Doreen that he is a plumber. When Doreen finds out his true line of work she is prepared to be forgiving but unfortunately she catches a reluctant Billy in a compromising position with his predatory admirer Daisy Plummer with only a jelly mould to cover his nudity.

Perturbed that rival undertaker Percy Openshaw is stealing her custom Ivy sets a trap, which leads to a truce and a marriage proposal. However a tea leaf reading and an unexpected visitor expose Percy's true motives, providing Ivy with a narrow escape.

Ivy organizes the funeral for Alderman Potter, wealthy pork butcher and late husband of Ivy's school- friend Annie but, due to a borrowed hearse and incompetent pall-bearers, it is a disaster and, at Annie's suggestion, Billy goes to work in her butcher's shop. Ivy soon misses him and is pleased when, due to his ineptitude, he is back working with her at the undertakers.

Ivy feels sorry for baker Malcolm Fletcher, who seems unaware that his supposedly ill wife Edna is having an affair with window cleaner Alec Crowther and, at Edna's request organizes Malcolm's funeral after his death in a bus crash. However Malcolm is far from dead and, as Ivy comes to realize, has faked his demise as a means of getting out of his failed marriage.

When French onion seller Marcel Duval falls off his bicycle and gets killed Billy decides to broaden his cultural horizons by driving the body back to France, accompanied by his feckless friend Ernie, who can speak the language. Ivy is concerned for him but without cause as they never make it out of Yorkshire since Billy has forgotten to take his passport.