A JOKE in a group newsletter to the newly bereaved has cost the organisation funding from social services.

Frances Raferty, founder of Jigsaw, which helps puts the lives of grieving widows and widowers back together, is furious that political correctness has robbed them of the grants they need to operate.

Mrs Raferty, who was widowed four years ago, knew there must be other people in the same position and launched the support group from her Atherton home last summer.

The group has blossomed and receives referrals from the council's bereavement services co-ordinator, Wigan and Leigh Hospice, and local doctors' surgeries.

But when Mrs Raferty applied to Wigan Council's social services voluntary sector liaison unit for refunding for the Leigh group -- and a grant for the new one -- the application for both was refused.

She was told the panel believed the council could not support the grant aid, due to the style and content of the newsletter being produced.

The joke that is believed to have caused offence read: "A sign on a brass plaque seen in Newquay (and probably written by a man!) said: 'God gave women orgasms so they could moan all night as well'."

Mrs Raferty said: "The newsletter, which I compile and produce myself, is sent out to more than 100 people and others interested in joining Jigsaw to cheer them up. They love it.

"It contains serious information and news, letters, events, competitions and humorous little anecdotes.

"I enclosed a copy of Leigh's issue 13 with the grant application to impress the panel with the work being done. I wish I hadn't bothered, and we would have had the re-funding by now.

"I was told in a conversation with a representative of social services that her boss thought the joke was disgusting.

"At the recent bereavement awareness conference in Wigan in May, the work of Jigsaw was praised and the significant comment was that such groups are needed. As the group continues to do exactly the same work, only more and better than previously merited funding, we are at a loss to understand the reason for this refusal.

"Not to allocate grants for the sake of a joke, which was not dirty, is a bit much. Our members are incensed."

The groups meets monthly at the Leigh Miners' Institute and the Caledonian in Ashton.

A council spokesman said: "Organisations that administer public funds have a duty at all times to be as far as possible above reproach.

"It was felt by the panel that Jigsaw had in the past printed material in its newsletter which could have been misunderstood and could have been interpreted as offensive to certain sections of society.

"In the case of an organisation involved in such a sensitive subject as bereavement, it was felt to be especially important to avoid any possible suggestion that Wigan Council approved of the attitudes implicit in such material."