Ron Marsh thought he had given his 98-year-old mother Joyce a dignified send-off, until he discovered her body was still at the funeral home six months after her service
Joyce Moulton passed away at the age of 98 and was left in Robert Bush’s care(Image: Submitted)
The son of a woman whose body remained in Robert Bush’s funeral parlour for six months after she died has deemed the treatment of his mother’s remains “despicable beyond belief”. Joyce Moulton was identified by her hospital bracelet, which was still attached to her wrist, after she was found to be one of the bodies Bush was hoarding in the warehouse of his Hessle Road funeral parlour.
Ron Marsh, Joyce’s son, says his mother was “a force to be reckoned with” and loved caring for her grandchildren. She died in Hull on 21 September 2023 at the age of 98 and her family entrusted Bush to take care of her, using his services to organise cremation and a funeral.
Ron and his brother Peter contacted Bush’s Legacy Independent Funeral Directors to discuss funeral arrangements shortly after Joyce passed away. Ron, who lives in Surrey, said: “While we were in the mortuary there were business cards for Robert Bush’s company and the morgue attendant said they were a good company.
“We arranged for the funeral to be done there, at their chapel of rest. We had a lovely service, and he organised a celebrant to come talk to my brother and I. We sent them some photographs. You could not have wished for a nicer service, and the guy was professional.
“It was very much what you’d expect of a funeral director. He told us mum will be cremated within the next two to three days, and we left thinking it was a good job done.”
On Mothering Sunday 2024, Ron was visited by two Family Liaison Officers from Guildford Police Station. He was given the shocking news that his mum’s body was one of more than 30 that were found in Bush’s morgue – six months after she was supposed to have been cremated.
Ron said: “If you’d told me that aliens had landed, I’d be more inclined to believe you. I would never have thought that my mum was still lying in the warehouse attached to the chapel of rest.”
The family had never received any ashes following the funeral service in September, believing Legacy would keep hold of them until they’d decided where to lay Joyce to rest. “At the time we didn’t know what we wanted to do with the ashes,” Ron said. “It must’ve been early December when my daughter asked me what we should do with them.” Ron contacted Legacy, but his calls and emails went unanswered.
During the visit from police on Mother’s Day, Ron was asked to provide a photograph of Joyce. Her body was eventually identified by the hospital band that was still on her wrist.
Ron said: “They confirmed that my mum was there. They came and told me on Mothering Sunday that this had happened and confirmed it with a visit later that week. She was one of the 33 to 35 bodies that were still there. It wasn’t something you want to hear on Mothering Sunday, or any Sunday.
“One of the things that plays on your mind is, what was he going to do with these bodies? They’d stack up. It’s something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. You think you’ve done everything you can to get your mum’s funeral done nicely. Everyone at the funeral was happy with what happened. Then you find out six months later that she was still there.”
Joyce was 98 when she had a fall at home in Hull and went into hospital. She passed away on 21 September. She had been battling dementia for the last three years of her life – but still loved to do crosswords and sudoku.
Hull-born Joyce met her first husband Roy – who was in the navy – when his ship docked in her home town. She followed him to the south of England, where she had her two sons. She kept her Yorkshire accent, despite spending 50 years living in the south, and returned to Hull once her grandchildren were too old to need her to look after them.
Ron said: “My mum lived a good life but it’s a sad ending to a good life. The way it panned out unfortunately wasn’t very nice, but she was a force to be reckoned with.
“She was 4ft 10 and a half, and never backed down in her life. They used to call her ‘boxer’ when she was at school because she always used to be in fights. She was argumentative, stroppy, not politically correct in her thoughts. She voted to leave Europe and couldn’t understand why ferries were coming in the day after!
“But she was helpful, she always wanted to help people. My mum and dad met when he was in the navy. His ship came into Hull and the next thing my mum is down in the south of England, and she lived there for the next 50 years.” Joyce and Roy’s marriage did not last, but she later found happiness with George, who sadly died of cancer when Joyce was still in Surrey.
Ron says even as a single mum, Joyce “didn’t get any handouts”. She worked for a Surrey-based company called Reginald Foster Dagnall (RFD) that used to make life rafts for ships. Ron fondly remembers Joyce bringing a life raft home one day for her sons to play with in the nearby river.
When that job became too physical for her she worked in a cafe in the local village of Witley. Joyce stuck around in the south of England until her grandchildren were grown, then moved back to Hull to be near her siblings.
Ron said: “Probably around her late 70s and early 80s, she was still helping old people in her area, doing shopping for them and dressing a lady’s wounds. If she was in the seat next to you on the bus, you would get no rest. She was a lovely lady. She took no medication whatsoever, fit as a fiddle until dementia arose.”
For that reason, Joyce wished to donate her body to medical science. “She shouldn’t have been cremated,” Ron said. “She should have been taken to the Leeds and Hull Medical School for scientific research. On the day that she died, the school said they were inundated with bodies and they couldn’t take any more. That’s why we had to arrange for her to be cremated.
“He’d charged us for the cremation – but he hadn’t paid for any cremation – so he pocketed the £900. We paid up front, he had the money. What he spent it on I do not know.”
Once Joyce’s body was discovered, Hull City Council stepped in and organised a cremation. Ron says her ashes have now been scattered in Hull, where Joyce was born and where she lived out her final days. Ron is hoping the government steps in to regulate funeral directors in order to better protect the dignity of the dead.
He said: “One of the things that has come out of this is how we have complete and utter trust in funeral directors. No one would think they weren’t going to follow through and do the cremation or burial. It should never have happened. But because funeral directors are not registered, there are no regulations in place to say ‘you have to follow this procedure’. There’s no joined up writing with regard to where they’ve been cremated once the death has been signed off by the doctor.
“99% of funeral directors do a wonderful job, but with one bad egg, everyone gets tarred with the same brush. He has given funeral directors a hard time now because people are going to not trust them.”
Ron is hoping regulations for funeral directors “come into force sooner rather than later”. “This should not and cannot happen to other families. There has to be registration and regulation that means that everybody knows where that body is at any given time. No one knew he had 30-odd bodies in his warehouse. There’s no loop. The people in the crematorium aren’t aware that they are waiting for any number of bodies.
“What he has done is despicable beyond belief. You wonder about human nature that someone could actually do that and not have any empathy for the bodies that have been left on shelves in that warehouse. I think you have to blame the system that isn’t in place that should’ve been in place from the get-go. Almost everything else is regulated in this country – you can’t even be a dog walker without registering yourself. But you can be a funeral director without having to be held to account or do training. That needs to change quickly.”
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