People around here disappear all the time.

In the pub the other day we were discussing some of the regular drinkers who we used to see most days but have not seen for weeks/months. A certain chap was mentioned and the last thing we heard was that he was in hospital with liver failure but that was bloody ages ago.

Somebody piped up, “He’s probably brown bread.”

That made me smile – the slang, that is, not the very likely possibility of this guy having died alone in his filthy flat after drowning his own organs in cheap cider and Value Vodka.

“Yeah, yer prob’ly right, mate. An’ if ‘e ain’t brown bread yet, ‘e soon will be, rate e’s carryin’ on.”

Brown bread = dead.

It made me smile because it’s easier to think of my dad as being a sliced wholemeal Kingsmill loaf than dead. Brown bread in my head is better than dead. It’s easier.