JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Sorting out my Mum’s financial affairs after her death has been an emotional rollercoaster. Just one giant provider left me fuming…

Sorting out my Mum’s financial affairs after her death late last month has been a rollercoaster affair — both emotionally and administratively.

At times, it’s required detective work that Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of, hunting down key financial documents. Occasionally, it has brought joy as unknown savings accounts have been discovered — only to be followed by frustration as I have had to deal over the phone with an artificial intelligence bot. For bereavement? God, help us.

Mum, or Helen of Troy as I liked to call her, died after a tough battle with cancer. She was 88 although she looked more like 68.

When we went out for lunch together, people would sometimes assume we were husband and wife. Mum would be thrilled, me less so.

Although the death certificate says she died of carcinoma of the breast, the cancer had spread to all parts of her body by the end, including her brain.

Jeff Prestridge with his mother Helen, who he nicknamed Helen of Troy and describes as ‘a home bird who took pride in where she lived and thought she was invincible’

Yet right until the day she died (January 29), she remained her forthright self, lambasting us (her four children) for moving her into a care home for the last week of her life.

‘I want to go home,’ she would insist. ‘I can look after myself perfectly well, thank you.’ If looks could kill.

She couldn’t, but Mum was Mum — a home bird who took pride in where she lived and thought she was invincible. Queen of the castle.

For not far short of 70 years, she had ruled the roost at various homes in Sutton Coldfield, knocking her four children into shape for independent lives, while supporting Dad in his career as a successful commercial salesman (he could sell coals to Newcastle — in fact he probably did).

She was a housewife, although she was far more than that. She ruled her home. You simply couldn’t do anything inside the four walls of her homes without her knowing about it. She gave the Chinese a good run for their money when it came to surveillance.

So, an urge to imitate wrestler Mick McManus (a boyhood hero) and put my younger brother David in a headlock would be nipped in the bud before I had even flung him to the floor.

‘Stop it right now,’ she would shout from somewhere downstairs. ‘Jeffrey, get your homework done right away.’

A party I secretly organised when Mum and Dad went on holiday only remained a secret until she thundered through the front door upon her return and straightaway realised something was amiss. I was hauled out of school and given a dressing down to end all dressing downs. I still have nightmares about it.

Dad (Stan the Man) kept Mum sweet by taking her (and us children) on overseas holidays before they had become the norm. He also bought her designer clothes and jewellery. She revelled in the attention she got from other men. In her pomp, she turned heads.

Yet Mum was an extremely private woman. We weren’t allowed to tell her longest-standing friend about her illness — and she refused to see her as the final curtain began to be drawn on her life.

Nor were we allowed to inform her neighbours. The wheelchair was kept out of view although she had no choice but to use it when we took her out to lunch. As for someone to come in and care for her occasionally, no chance. ‘I’m not having a stranger in my house,’ she would rage when we said what a good idea it would be.

In fact, we did manage to get a nurse to visit and introduce herself. Mum sent her packing straightaway with a flea or three in her ear. We cringed.

Frustratingly, this privacy extended to her finances. After Dad passed in 2017, it became nigh impossible to keep an eye on her money. Despite my personal finance knowledge, her view was simple: ‘It’s my money and it’s none of your bloody business, Mr nosey PF Journalist.’

Although I eventually persuaded her to permit me to have power of attorney over her finances, the only thing I really managed to achieve was to keep an eye on her bank account — and to shift money from an associated savings account into it when the energy bill drained her funds.

Whenever I tried to look for evidence of other savings accounts around her home — she never embraced the internet — she would rebuke me and tell me to stop ‘meddling, fiddling and farting’.

She had a way with words did Mum, although I never quite understood the phrase ‘oh, s**t on a sandwich’. She used it whenever she was frustrated — which was a lot in the last year of her life.

Thankfully, when Mum went into hospital after falling in the night and somehow ending up underneath her bed, my sister Joy (along with brother Dave and older sister Pauline, a brick in the last few months of Mum’s life) started ferreting.

From all corners of Mum’s bungalow, she gathered a veritable assortment of documents — bank statements, building society passbooks, policy documents, utility bills, premium bond prize warrants and insurance policies.

Sorting it all out has not been without its challenges. Starting with the good, the Government’s Tell Us Once service was a dream. Using the unique reference number that Joy obtained when picking up the death certificates, I was able to report Mum’s death online to a number of government departments simultaneously.

This meant I was able to cancel her passport, State pension, council tax — all in one go. All I needed was some key information such as her passport details and national insurance number.

South Staffs Water couldn’t have been more helpful. A really obliging individual said Mum’s account would be closed straight away and no further charges would be applied while we sold Mum’s home. ‘Mind you, no baths or washing the car when you’re there,’ she quipped. Gold stars all round.

Mum’s credit cards with M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco were easily cancelled — she cleared any balances by direct debit every month. And claiming on a small life policy, taken out by Mum to provide funds for her funeral, was pretty straightforward. There will be more than enough left over to pay for the wake.

Staff at NatWest, Mum’s bank, and Nationwide in Sutton Coldfield were utterly charming with her accounts promptly closed on receipt of a copy of her death certificates. Indeed, Nationwide told me Mum had another account besides the one we knew about.

OK, there was only £2.83 in it, but it was nice that the building society was batting for us (Mum would have been proud of the fact that we hadn’t tracked it down). It has now sent me account statements that will help with probate (I’m already losing sleep over that journey).

Mum’s private pension with Aviva — an annuity, originally taken out by my Dad — was easily cancelled, although it was then disconcerting to receive a letter of confirmation addressed to Mr J John (John is my middle name). I think I will stick with Prestridge for the time being.

My most disconcerting moments came when I rang NS&I to inform them about Mum’s demise (she has some Premium Bonds with them). I used the telephone number given for notification of deaths, but rather than be greeted with a friendly voice, I was put through to a ‘virtual assistant’.

Maybe I wasn’t concentrating, but first time around I didn’t immediately clock that I was dealing with AI and lost my cool at the banal questions I was being asked: ‘what is your call about today?’

When it asked to encapsulate in one word the reason for my call, I screamed: ‘bereavement’. I waited and waited for a response until I suddenly realised that AI had suffered enough of me — and cut me off.

Second time around, the ‘conversation’ was less fraught because I knew what I was dealing with. It pointed me in the direction of a form I should fill in online.

But should NS&I be using AI to handle individuals who may still be grieving? I don’t think so and I have told them what I think.

It argues that AI helps the organisation to ‘filter calls quickly and efficiently’. It adds: ‘Call wait times can vary, but after initially speaking with the virtual assistant, on average a customer should be able to speak with a person in our bereavement claims team in less than a minute.’

Of course, AI is intruding into all of our lives. But I’m not sure it works when handling calls about bereavement.

NS&I should think again. Surely, it’s not beyond its collective brain power — or financial budget — to provide a dedicated bereavement helpline manned by people.

Rest in peace, Helen of Troy.