THE LAST ORDER

After the Second World War, an Italian family settled in Liverpool. The Figlio family started a fish and chip shop that grew in popularity overnight. Mr Figlio invited his relatives and his six sons into the business. His daughters’ husbands were also assured of work in the family business and so Figlio’s Fish and Chip shops grew in number and size and were much appreciated in the city.

In due course some of the family members died and on such a sad occasion the local undertaker was asked to find the most beautiful flowers and the most beautiful coffin. The undertaker was left to make it a wonderful celebration of life, with no expense spared. On no more that five occasions had this arrangement been appreciated but sadly one day Mr Figlio senior himself, the founder of the fish and chip Empire, died.

His eldest son then went to the undertaker and asked that this be the most wonderful funeral the city had ever seen. There should be two black horses bearing black feathers on their crowns, to pull a bier caring a teak coffin. On the coffin, the son asked for a special wording for the much-loved father of this family.

As the coffin was lowered into the ground, handfuls of soil fell on it, and began to cover the inscription which read:

GOOD-BYE Mr. CHIPS