Garden Plot

In Dover, England, longtime resident Terry Lee hit on a plan after the town council forbade him from burying his wife's body in the garden behind their house. It was a place she loved above all others, which she spent long hours tending -- and where she often said she wished to be buried.

Lee decided to make his point so graphically that the authorities would have to allow the garden interment. "My wife was completely against cremation. I intend to have her embalmed, which is 100 percent preserved, and put her in the front room in an easy chair if I have to," Lee told BBC radio, according to a dispatch from Reuters. "I don't want to have to do it, but I'm prepared to go to extreme measures to prove a point."

Dover chief housing officer Tony Stickles said Lee's neighbors had complained about the home burial. He added: "I feel for Mr. Lee, coming to terms with the loss of his wife. However, we are talking about a relatively small terraced house with a number of other properties close by, and it's easy to understand the concerns of neighbors" who resisted planting the old girl in the garden.

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