In Loving Memory

- Season 2

(1980)

On the eve of the Undertakers' Annual Outing Ivy and Billy recall the previous year's trip when they gave a lift to the Pardoe family - kindly Mr Pardoe, his snooty wife, their greedy son Herbert and Herbert's betrothed, Mary Bennett. When the hearse broke down Herbert and his mother took the train, leaving Ivy and Mr Pardoe to reminisce on their past romance and for a new one to flourish between Mary and Billy - though Mary still married Herbert.

When Ivy refuses to buy lucky heather from gypsy Vera Turnbull, she puts a curse on her and Billy. Ivy is sceptical until bad things start to happen including Billy ending up in hospital. However the tables are turned when Vera also has an accident - tripping over her basket of lucky heather.

Having made an extremely good impression on Ivy Billy's new girlfriend Doreen then shocks her by suggesting that she and Billy spend a pre-marital weekend together to see if they are compatible. Eventually Doreen manages to convince Ivy that nothing untoward will happen and, thanks o Billy's clumsiness, nothing does - leading Doreen to believe that their relationship would be doomed.

Following a drunken birthday celebration Billy loses a coffin with a body due for burial . The police find it but in order to hit a funeral deadline Ivy has buried somebody else and when she and Billy try to swap the coffins back again they are arrested for grave robbing and must appear in court. They are acquitted but Ivy fears it will harm her application to be the British Undertakers' Association's first female president.

A despondent Ivy fails in her bid to become the president of the British Undertakers' Association and, to make things worse, Billy's pet frog is discovered inside the coffin at the latest burial. Misreading a note left by his aunt Billy wrongly assumes that she is suicidal and ends up dragging the canal for her whilst she joins the onlookers watching him from a bridge.

When rabble-rousing evangelist Brother Benjamin Bailey arrives in town Billy is smitten by his assistant Sister Joanna and willingly joins their mission as a fund-raiser. Ivy is shocked when he announces that he might be leaving the business to travel with them and relieved when he discovers that they are a pair of con artists.

A hot summer spells a lack of trade for Ivy with the bank threatening to repossess the business for resale. After an unfortunate double booking the future looks bleak - until Ivy gets a client with an unusual last request.