Campaign launched to fund comedy legend's funeral

Comedy legend, Chris Sievey, that's Frank Sidebottom to you and I, sadly passed away this week and, despite being much-loved over a lengthy career, left few assets behind. In The Manchester Evening News, his son Stirling said: "My father has not left any money behind and we are struggling to try and sort his funeral out. He spent money as it came in and was always a man for the moment.

"We would not know how to go about getting that sort of money [to pay for the funeral]. They said that applying for a pauper’s funeral would be an option. We would not want our dad to have a pauper’s funeral but we would not want something over the top for him. Just something simple and dignified."

In response, Sidebottom's fans have created a facebook group with details of how to donate. Supporters can also search for the Twitter hashtag #franksfund.