Jimmy White has lived a colourful life that has been characterised by incredible talent on the snooker table and addiction issues off it.
But even talkSPORT host Danny Kelly was shocked by White’s tale of once taking his brother’s corpse on a pub crawl following his funeral.
The six-time World Snooker Championship finalist joined Kelly for the talkSPORT series My Sporting Life where he opened up on all of those defeats as well as his chequered life.
He spoke about drink and gambling problems as well as taking crack cocaine.
But an eye-catching story was about what happened after his brother Martin sadly passed away in 1996.
White was left devastated by the loss and became particularly emotional following Martin’s funeral.
Their grief even resulted in the former world number two re-entering the funeral parlour to see his brother one last time.
What followed was a trip to several pubs together as he gave Martin a final farewell.
Recalling the night, White told talkSPORT’s Danny Kelly: “Some people might not comprehend it, but at the time it felt natural.
“Me, my brother, sister and my driver were in a pub opposite the funeral place.
“We were all in shock and were in floods of tears for hours and hours. All of a sudden I said I was going to see him again. A couple of them tried to stop me.
“I went over and there was a big padlock on a chain. I kicked this chain and the padlock fell off.
“We went in and now we’re laughing and talking with him, sat him up. We were still all crying our eyes out talking to him.
“I said let’s take him out. I took him to a couple of places for a drink, then to my brother’s house and took him back about 5am or 6am. I put him back exactly how he was and tried to put the chain back.
“About two days later the police came to arrest me for breaking and entering, but when I explained the story to them they said nothing had been stolen and if you go and apologise then everything should be fine.”
He continued: “It was insane, but it felt natural at the time. We were in such shock and grief and a little bit of anger as well.
“This guy Mick was screaming at me, he’d obviously seen me do some crazy things saying this was madness.
“I was saying either you drive or I drive. I was not in a fit state to drive, so he drove.”
Meanwhile, White was still able to return his brother’s corpse with the help of a taxi driver.
The 62-year-old explained: “Mick had given up about 5:30am, he’d had enough. We got a cab to take him back to the funeral parlour and the cab driver said he doesn’t look too well.
“I said he was fine, he was just a bit drunk. He didn’t know he had a dead body in the car.”
The Whirlwind is one of the greatest cueists to never become world champion.
White has been unable to do so despite reaching the World Snooker Championship final six times.
Now ranked 93rd in the world, he begins his latest campaign for glory in qualifying on Tuesday.
In the first of four matches he must win to reach the main draw, White takes on Ukraine’s Anton Kazakov in Sheffield.
