My nanna, Etty
Back in the days of back to back housing, two-up two-downs, shamfours, whatever you want to call them, is when my mum grew up. Well, both my parents actually. Anyway, there used to be streets and off these streets were small terraces with about 6 houses each side facing each other. You get the idea.

Every street used to have 2 or 3 residents who would get called upon when there was a birth or a death. Some woman from down the street would act as the local midwife for that small community.

My nanna did the opposte. Whenever someone died, she'd get a knock on the door and she'd go round and 'lay out' the body. This involved basic undertaking work - cleaning up the corpse, washing the hair, putting the deceased's best clothes on, bit of makeup etc. There was no chapel of rest for the body to be taken to, instead a coffin would be sourced and placed on trestles in the parlour for a few days until the funeral.

About 15 years ago, before she finally went into a home (after three bad strokes) I'd visited her one afternoon and she was telling me all about it. Then she leant forward, looked around and in hushed tones began to tell me the weirdest story. Why she did all that I don't know, because we were the only ones there.

Back in the 1930s, she got a knock and the man of a fairly large family down the street had passed away at the tender age of 'never saw his 40th'. My nanna went round to speak to the wife, asking for his Sunday best, towels and a bit of carbolic so as to get on with the task. Now this woman, we'll call her Aggie for convenience, was one of my nanna's closets friends so she would make the extra effort for her. Aggie then asked for the most bizarre request.

She wanted to keep her dead husband's penis.

My nanna knew that Aggie was a bit of a racy sort, but even this took her by surprise.

"What the bloody hell for? Are you tapped?"
"What do you think I want it for? As a bookend? Can you do it? So as I can, you know, still have fond memories?"

Well, my nanna was creased up. "If that's what you really want, I'll see what I can do." And so she managed, using her experience of domestic service as a teenager on a poultry farm, to sever this man's lifeless cock and skin it.

"It looked just like a proper sheath that you used to get from the chemist in a box" she told me.
So far, so ghoulish. She then went on, in more detail than was necessary, but nevertheless was picking at my morbid curiosity, how she cut a length off a motorbike tyre from my grandad's shed, packed it solid with sawdust mixed with woodglue to keep it in shape and began to prepare the outer skin. The best way she could think of to preserve this was to cure it in salt overnight.
"It came out a bit queer the next day. It looked like leather. But, it still stretched on ok."
I was going to need a lot of mind-bleach to get shut of that image (as will all of you now).
"He wasn't really a big bloke.." she began
"Of course not, he was dead." I chuckled.
"and her parlour was a bit chilly, the miserly sod. Anyway, so I stitched it all up with neat stitches and there. He was now built like a horse" she cackled. "She'll never have had it so good! I left the tread on for extra detail."
I spluttered my tea and my choccy digestives slid from their perch on my knee.
"You saucy get." I said in between coughing. She laughed some more.
"Anyway, the funeral came and went and she told me how grateful she was with a wink. But here's the best part.." She looked around again.
"About a month later, I saw Aggie and I asked her about it. She said a few weeks afterwards, she went into the scullery and the dog was on the floor near the stove chewing on it like a bone!"

I cracked up at this point. "You're having me on"
"Honest of god" she replied.
"What did she do?" I asked
"She didn't half kick that dog up the arse. The dog then ran outside with it, and laid on the pavement with it. She said she thought 'sod it', and let the dog keep the damn thing."
"God knows what passers-by thought" I said. "If he'd been having an affair with some woman from up the street and she walked past and saw it..."
and with that my nanna was truly helpless laughing.

Regardless of the cause of the laughter, the sight of my nanna laughing like that is one of my fondest memories of her.

So there you have it, my mum's mum - penile taxidermist.

Length? A good 8 inches of Dunlop's finest vulcanised cross-ply.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 17:14, 2 replies)

Fantastic!
I think I'm going to put a request in my will. Then the wife will HAVE to look at it!

Clicks for rubbery length.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 17:48, closed)

hahaha
Brilliant story
(abrokenanusdream, Sat 13 Feb 2010, 19:27, closed)