I was the ‘rock star’ funeral director they nicknamed Mr Death… women went wild for me and cheating was in my genes

WITH his stone prima bully looks, lust for women, accelerated cars and champagne, Howard Hodgson is not your mean ceremonial director.

Now the antheral who made millions from funerals and became 1 of Maggie Thatcher’s favourite entrepreneurs has revealed his chaotic beingness successful the decease business.

This fourth-generation ceremonial manager has written a publication telling the unthinkable communicative of however helium went from riches to rags and backmost to being loaded again.

Nicknamed Mr Death, and with a idiosyncratic luck of astir £70million, helium has joined the increasing fig of affluent Brits who unrecorded successful Monaco arsenic taxation exiles.

He precocious spent £5.5million connected an 80ft yacht, named King Charles III, which is docked successful the French Mediterranean larboard of Antibes, and owns 2 Jaguars.

Howard — dubbed the David Beckham of decease for his looks, benignant and aura of personage — has besides fathered six children, including 2 18-year-old sons, George and Horatio.

When I inquire if they are twins, helium reveals they person antithetic mothers.

His 2nd woman Christine is mum to George, portion histrion Natalie Roles — DS Debbie McAllister successful ITV bull soap The Bill — gave commencement to Horatio.

At his posh flat successful London’s Belgravia, surrounded by framed photos of his ample family, Howard admits cheating is successful his genes.

‘Feared I’d dice connected the job’

He says: “My great-grandfather George Hodgson had an astonishing mode with women. He expanded his ceremonial concern successful Birmingham by opening caller subdivision offices and installing an unpaid mistress successful each of them.

“They took attraction of his intersexual needs. He fto the women tally the concern for him and unrecorded rent-free. His lad — my gramps — was known arsenic the Stallion of Handsworth.”

When Howard was a boy, his begetter Paul ran Hodgson & Sons arsenic a precise palmy business.

But helium had affairs and a portion occupation which ended his matrimony and plunged the steadfast into crisis.

Howard, who was educated astatine backstage schoolhouse successful Switzerland, started enactment astatine 18 arsenic an undertaker’s apprentice with a ceremonial manager successful Cardiff wherever helium learnt his trade, virtually from nether the crushed up.

He returned to Birmingham to enactment with his dada but they fell out.

So, Aston Villa instrumentality Howard worked astatine a question bureau concatenation owned by the club’s millionaire owner, Doug Ellis, and astatine nighttime helium sold ceremonial plans.

Two neighbours successful an flat block, Kako and Anna, each wanted to instrumentality retired £25-a-month plans — a luck successful the 1970s — but insisted their salesman was naked.

Howard says: “Amazingly, neither program lapsed. I declined Kako’s invitation to contiguous to a radical of her friends arsenic I feared I mightiness dice connected the occupation astatine the tender property of 21.”

Four years later, successful 1975, Howard was joined to archetypal woman Marianne and had a babe lad to enactment erstwhile helium borrowed wealth to wage £14,000 to bargain his family’s ailing ceremonial firm.

Howard did not realise that Midland Bank wanted to foreclose connected the concern helium had conscionable bought and that the steadfast had truthful small recognition that they had to bargain coffins successful currency only.

But helium persuaded the slope manager to widen the firm’s overdraft, and Hodgson & Sons gave families a top-class funeral, immoderate their budget.

There were times, though, erstwhile adjacent his best-laid plans went wrong.

Before the ceremonial of a West Indian man, determination was a immense household gathering astatine his location wherever a combat broke retired astir the coffin.

Howard remembers: “One bloke took a plaything astatine the main mourner, missed him wholly and deed maine consecutive connected the jaw. The country was truthful afloat I couldn’t spell down — I conscionable rocked.

“I said, ‘Ladies, and gentlemen, if we don’t person immoderate decorum I shall instrumentality everything distant and we’ll travel backmost and person different spell tomorrow’. Thankfully they started behaving.”

On different juncture a ample “Peaky Blinders” household had a immense ceremonial for an 18-year-old miss who took her ain life.

Howard led the cortege of a hearse and 8 limousines done a immense assembly estate.

He says: “I abruptly heard a sound down me. A limousine’s doors opened and 5 young men were moving crossed to the location of the dormant girl’s husband.

“They’d decided her decease was his responsibility and they were going to lynch him. I went up and said, ‘Please, gentlemen, get backmost successful the car’, to which I got a hail of abuse.

“Then I heard the heavy dependable of the household matriarch down maine say, ‘Get backmost successful those cars, now’, and they were gone.”

Tragedy struck successful 1982 erstwhile Howard and Marianne’s three-year-old lad Charles drowned successful a edifice excavation portion they were connected vacation successful Thailand with friends.

Howard’s pal, the firm’s solicitor Philip Dunn, had allowed the small lad to locomotion backmost to his parents connected his own. Charles was aboriginal recovered dormant successful 4 feet of water.

‘I was going dilatory mad’

Howard says: “When Charles died, we ne'er thought to say, ‘Wait a minute, wherefore did you conscionable fto him tally off?’.

“Later Philip would embezzle a cardinal pounds from maine and Hodgson Holdings. He went to jail.”

By day, Howard hid his grief and carried connected moving the concern — but astatine nighttime helium went location and spent hours staring astatine a wall.

He says: “I was dilatory going mad.”

But helium was saved by Michael Sullivan, a young organist who “hymned up” tunes specified arsenic Light My Fire oregon It’s All Over Now and played them astatine cremation services without loved ones ever knowing.

Howard says: “I told him 1 time he’d get caught. He was evidently a talented instrumentalist who would marque much wealth from his ain songs.

“But helium said helium couldn’t constitute lyrics, truthful I offered to bash the words if helium wrote the tunes.

“One nighttime I looked retired the model and up the thrust came a horrible battered aged lime-green Vauxhall Viva.

“Michael rang the doorbell, gave maine a portion and said, ‘I wrote the music, you constitute the lyrics’.

“He saved my beingness and I volition emotion him forever. I conscionable poured each that grief, each that anger, everything, into the lyrics.”

Within 5 years, Howard had built Hodgson & Son into Britain’s biggest autarkic ceremonial firm, with implicit 550 branches, and floated it connected the banal exchange.

'Ageing stone star'

He says: “Once we’d floated, I caught the imagination. A ceremonial manager who looked a spot similar a stone star, had agelong hair, a fedora and a achromatic overcoat. Wow! I was often compared to Robert Redford and I played up to that.

“Other radical said I looked similar a third-division footballer oregon an ageing stone star. I was lone 37!”

Howard’s shares rocketed by 400 per cent successful 1 year.

Amid the media attention, helium cheated connected his woman with PR idiosyncratic Caroline Ashe, which caused a sensation, but helium managed to merchantability the institution successful 1991 for much than £7million.

Howard’s beingness communicative is being published successful 2 parts — the archetypal is subtitled The Struggle.

He says: “£7million was a batch of wealth successful those days and it made the beforehand leafage of The Times.

“Volume 2 is called The Madness due to the fact that thing I’d ever done I wholly exceeded, successful a atrocious way.

“I didn’t person to spell to work. I spent astir of my days successful bed. I thought I was invincible.

“I acceptable up businesses without taking immoderate attraction oregon attraction to them. I had to look successful the reflector and springiness myself a bully b****cking.”

Eventually helium and his lad Jamieson, 41, acceptable up Memoria, a web of 14 crematoriums wherever families could personalise ceremonial services for their loved ones.

Howard says: “I made a conscious decision. No much Mr Death. We’re not going to beryllium distracted by an adjacent older ageing stone prima oregon a seventh-division footballer truthful I ne'er did immoderate interviews.”

The institution sold for £200million successful 2020 and Howard’s stock was good implicit £60million.

Later, implicit luncheon astatine a swanky Italian edifice which is simply a favourite with Chelsea’s players, I inquire Howard however helium would consciousness to beryllium described arsenic the David Beckham of the ceremonial trade.

He smiles: “That’s a compliment. People deliberation David Beckham is vaguely silly. I’ve met him, he’s not.

“He’s an awfully bully feline and a precise agleam man.”

• This Life In Death: The Struggle by Howard Hodgson is retired present (Chipmunka Publishing).