Dead-end job for Sophie’s brother: an undertaker!

AS PRESSURE builds on minor royals to pay their way, the Countess of Wessex’s brother has seen his own career take a grave turn. I can reveal that David Rhys-Jones has trained as an undertaker and now works at a funeral parlour in Kent.

‘There have been a few jokes about it, but David is deadly serious about his new career,’ one of his friends tells me. ‘You never know, his firm might end up doing the honours for members of the Royal Family.’

Sophie Wessex’s older brother is learning his trade at the family firm C. Waterhouse & Sons in Burwash. His work is likely to impress Sophie’s environmentally minded brother-in-law Prince Charles because it promotes ‘green’ funerals, with eco-caskets made of biodegradable materials.

It also offers woollen caskets with organic cotton interior lining made by Hainsworth & Sons, who hold a Royal Warrant.

Prices are ‘competitive’ and start at £2,000 for an ‘affordable’ send-off. The Good Funeral guide says: ‘They are proud of their presence, wanting to offer the same excellent service to everybody, dukes and dustmen.’

Former racecourse commentator Rhys-Jones, 53, who declines to comment on his unlikely career move, used to be a publican but his hostelry, The Royal Oak, at Brookland in Kent, called last orders in 2012 with debts of more than £100,000.

His business failure came six years after the Countess’s former PR company, RJH Public Relations, also folded. The Queen had told Prince Edward and his wife that they must end their commercial activities.

Rhys-Jones, whose father was a tyre salesman, is close to Sophie, and their relationship survived a hiccup after she married into the Royal Family when he cashed in on his connections by selling photos of his son’s christening to Hello! magazine.