Traveller patriarch laid to rest in solid gold coffin

'MONEY NO OBJECT' AS BUSINESSMAN GIVEN 'BEST POSSIBLE SEND-OFF'

- By LEE GRIMSDITCH & RUBY CLINE

THE patriarch of a respected traveller family was laid to rest in a 'six-figure solid gold' coffin, with his family saying that 'money is no object.

After Frank Thompson, 69, died from a chest infection, a family friend said: “The full family got involved to give him the best possible sendoff”.

They say they purchased a 'solid gold coffin' and arranged for a Rolls Royce to transport it on a week-long farewell tour of locations in Manchester and Nottingham.

The tour took in where Frank had operated businesses and Tarmac yards, as well as cemeteries where his friends and family were laid to rest.

According to a friend, they have also commissioned an enormous marble tomb to be constructed around his coffin which will take a year to build, at his plot in a south London cemetery.