A GRIEVING daughter is demanding an apology for an “awful” floral tribute at her father’s funeral.

TV lover Frederick Ernest Walter Bowles, who was so attached to the box it was “hard to get the remote out of his hand”, died aged 77 last month.

His family decided to order a floral tribute in the shape of a Sky remote control, nicknamed the “dibber”, for his funeral last Thursday.

But they said they were furious when they saw the arrangement from Ginger Lily Florists, believing it “looked like a flip-flop” rather than a remote control.

Frederick’s daughter Jilly Rushin, 50, said: “I’m getting more and more angry about it. The sentiment has gone and the last wish my sons have done for their grandad has been disrespected.”

The tribute was part of £1,000 worth of flowers ordered from the florist in Preston Drove, Brighton. They also included a Bertie Bassett design because Frederick, who lived at Preston Circus, Brighton, loved licorice.

The family paid £120 for the remote design but said it looked terrible

But the florist said if they had wanted more detail they could have had a £200 version.

When the remote arrived at the funeral at Woodvale, the arrangement was upside down.

The florist agreed that in this position, it bore a resemblance to a flip-flop and said it apologised on that basis.

But a member of staff said: “The remote control arrangement shows an accurate shape of a Sky control – note the curvature on the top right.

“It includes the black trim of a Sky control, grey sprayed flowers as the base, black sprayed flowers to represent some of the buttons, pale blue sprayed flowers to be representative of the larger buttons and red, green, yellow and blue single flowers to represent the additional function buttons.

“If placed upside down, as happened at the service, the coloured flowers could give the impression of strap of a flip-flop.

“Also, with the arrangement on a green base, when upside down, this further adds to the view it could be a flip-flop on grass.”

Ms Rushin said: “If you stand next to it with a picture of the TV remote it has some resemblance but it’s not obvious. It was just awful.”

“We were thinking about having the actual TV remote in the coffin with him, he loved BBC Two, Westerns, Cash in the Attic and the racing on Channel Four.

“He was an absolute diamond of a character, his funeral was a packed out event.”