Today is the third, and final, Friday the 13th of 2009, and the date has long been associated with superstition and bad luck.
The number 13 is considered awkward and irregular because of the ‘completeness’ of the number twelve, which is reflected by the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, the twelve apostles of Jesus, the twelve Gods of Olympus, etc. There is also the superstition, believed to have either derived from Norse myth or the Last Supper, that that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
And even as early as the 14th century Friday has been considered as the unlucky day of the week, with some suggesting that it’s because, according to Christian scripture, it was the day Jesus was crucified.
Statiscally speaking, though, it is clamied by the insurance provider AA that in fact Monday the 27th is actually Britain’s unluckiest day, and that is when most claims are filed.
But for the late Michael Mosey of Forth, Lanarkshire, it didn’t really matter what day of the week it was, his life was filled with so much misfortune that he was dubbed by the press “Scotland’s Unluckiest Man” – which he blamed solely on his wife, perhaps the country’s unluckiest lady?
Between them, the couple have suffered more than 50 accidents, more than 20 of which resulted in trips to the hospital.
Michael and Frances met whilst working as volunteer motorcycle couriers, transporting blood to local hospitals, and were married on St. Valentines Day, 1974. The couple honeymooned in Spain where they looked forward to a romantic holiday, but it didn’t quite turn out as hoped when their hotel room collapsed with Frances in the bath.
The unlucky streak continued throughout the marriage. On one occasion, whilst out riding his newly-bought motorbike Michael was hit by a car, which Frances happened to have been driving at the time.
When asked about his bad luck the former policeman blamed his wife, reportedly saying,
“Since I met Frances, I have broken my ankle and my back. I have fallen from a horse, out of bed, down stairs, into ponds … you name it. The telephone table has been rebuilt three times after me falling on it. And I have somehow managed to fall through the greenhouse three times.”
It has also been claimed that Michael also broke his right leg when tripping over a puppy, and he was left partially blind after drinking some black-market vodka.
Frances Mosey saw her fair share of bad luck too. She broke both her legs after falling down a 6 foot hole in the road which didn’t have any warning signs; she broke her shoulder blade after falling off a motorbike on her first ride; when in hospital recovering from a hernia operation a ceiling tile fell on her head, fracturing her skull; it was also said that on two seperate occasions, one in 1963 and one in 1996, during perfectly routine procedures she died on the operating table, yet was revived both times; and when making dinner one night she accidentally chopped off a finger, only for it to be eaten by her pet dog, making a reattachment impossible.
However, the final bit of bad luck for Michael came in 2006, a year after his wife died, when he was brutally murdered in his home. Fortunately the guilty man was caught by the police, with help from Michael; his dying words being the name of his attacker, and the killer is now serving a life sentence in prison.