The background to this image is that we were tipped off at Bedfordshire on Sunday, where I was the photographer for 9 years, that because the morgue at the Bedford Hospital was over flowing they were storing dead bodies on the carpeted floor of the Chapel of Rest. The truth of the matter was that this practice had been going on for a lot longer.


Myself and the now editor of the paper went down with the ‘deep throat’ one night and got see for ourselves, and that’s when this picture was taken. It made the Bedfordshire on Sunday splash, front page of the Sunday Telegraph on the same day (and I was interviewed for the top story on the six o’clock news that evening). It made The Mail and Mirror front pages on the Monday and went on to be published in every national newspaper. Questions were subsequently asked in Parliament and heads rolled at the hospital.


We had an arrangement with the management of BoS that photographs could be sold to a single national Sunday for publication on the same day as BoS.


The reproduction fees were shared between the news desk and myself, to the point that I had enough money to buy some kit and have a crack at freelancing, which I’ve been doing for six years now.


Without this picture I guess I’d still be in a safe staff job somewhere.

Ian Miles started on the Classified group in 1988 and went freelance in 2001. He now shoots for local and national newspapers, and also undertakes PR and corporate shoots.

Photographer since 1988, EPUK member since 2003.

See more work by Ian Miles