IMAGINE the distress of bereaved husband Ken Douglas -- already mourning the loss of his wife, Jean, just after Christmas, he is now to miss her burial.

He claimed the grave dug in the family plot at Darwen Old Cemetery was not fit for her to be buried in, and had the interment put back.

As a result, he is destined to miss the burial taking place on Friday -- four days after a funeral service took place as scheduled at the church where Mrs Douglas was a member. For, by then, he will be at his son's home in Canada, to where he had already arranged to travel to help him get over his wife's death.

But now his grief is cruelly compounded by having to be thousands of miles away while his wife is laid to rest. He will have to make do with the sad substitute of a video recording that family members have promised to send him.

Yet, if the loss of a spouse is among the most harrowing emotional ordeals anyone has to suffer, why has Mr Douglas had to experience this additional anguish? Could it not have been avoided?

There is disagreement over the state of the grave -- a vault made of bricks and flagstones. Mr Douglas maintained it was so badly constructed that it would have collapsed within a month. The council say it was completed as specified and the funeral could have taken place as originally arranged.

But if this lamentable dispute and its distressing consequences could be put down to a clash of viewpoints, then that might be the end of the matter, albeit an unsatisfactory conclusion.

Yet, there is a third party involved -- funeral director Marco Lysiuk. And his experience of burial arrangements must, surely, add weight to Mr Douglas's complaint when he, too, found himself appalled at the state of the grave dug by council workmen. Indeed, Mr Lysiuk found the bricks for the vault had been placed on top of each other without mortar.

In view of this, it would seem that something had gone sadly wrong. And though it may now only ameliorate the anguish of Mr Douglas and his family, the council would do well to determine if this was so and offer them a fuller explanation of what really happened.