Back from the dead

Just imagine cremating someone you think is your father, and then five years later you see him alive and well on TV. First you'd think it must be his double. Then you’d think, Jeez that IS my father - so who the hell got cremated?

A Manchester man found out that the father he thought was dead and gone was actually living in a care home but had lost his memory and didn’t know who he was.

The man earlier named as his father was a body found outside a hospital wearing clothes like his father’s. He had lain undiscovered for so long (I’m putting it politely) he was difficult to identify.

The police had issued an appeal with photos of the real John Delaney but when he was found wandering round central Manchester in a confused state, with bruises and amnesia, social workers didn’t make the connection and gave him a new name.

They couldn’t appeal for information about him because under the law at that time they had to have consent from a relative first.

So he languished in the care home until quite by chance his son (also John) happened to switch on a TV programme about missing people and there was the familiar face. It must have been quite a shock.

Well, I guess you’d be ecstatic (as his son was) if you’d loved your dad to bits and suddenly there he was back from the dead. On the other hand, if you’d loathed your dad and you were only too glad to see the back of him, what a nasty jolt if he turned up again! I suppose you could always turn off the TV sharpish and forget you ever saw him.

But for five years, the son must have been agonising about how his father’s body came to be undiscovered for so long and what dreadful circumstances had led to his death. He must have been thinking that if he’d kept a closer eye on him he’d still be alive. While all the time he WAS alive and had all the care he needed.

And what about the other family, the family of the cremated man? They’ll never know what happened to their own missing relative. He’ll always be just a huge question mark.