Jim Grant spent his life orphaned, a bachelor, alone, and when he died lay in his apartment two months without anyone noticing. Funeral director Simon Manning went on a personal mission to ensure Jim got a proper farewell.

When James Lewis George Grant died alone, an orphan and bachelor in his Wellington apartment, he did not even own a telephone.

If one wanted to meet with "Jim" - it was best to send a letter.

A building manager, drawn by complaints of a foul odour, had discovered the 78-year-old's body in his rented apartment near Parliament on March 2.

FAIRFAX NZ Jim Grant's body was found found in St Paul's apartments in Mulgrave St, Wellington, on March 2. He had lain there for months.

Inside was a newspaper, a bible, and an urn containing the ashes of a tabby cat.

Police couldn't put their finger on exactly when Jim expired, deciding it must have been around January, judging by the newspaper.

A man believed to be his landlord did not wish to comment on how Jim's death went undiscovered for two months.

How do you break the cycle of loneliness? Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute

But it was apparent to those who encountered him fleetingly over his lifetime that Jim had no one to notice.

Harbour City funeral director Simon Manning found Jim's will contained no provision for a funeral service or next of kin.

He embarked on an a personal expedition to trace the forgotten man's family - "If it was me that died in that flat, I would hope that somebody would take the time."

MAARTEN HOLL/STUFF The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart took pity on Jim Grant, and organised a full funeral service and requiem mass for him, with Father John Lyons delivering a sermon on modern life's loneliness.

Jim grew up in an orphanage near his hometown of Stratford, Taranaki.

Jim told people his parents had died in some kind of accident - perhaps a house fire.

Although there is no newspaper documentation of any fatal fires at that time, cemetery records show they died three years apart - he must have been 9 when his father, Jim, died and 12 when he lost his mother, Betty.

By age 15 Jim joined the postal service, Manning found.

He worked there his whole life, retiring in the rank of postmaster at the Wellington Railway Station.

He led an anonymous existence - no phone number, no online presence.

Finding no one to claim Jim's ashes, Manning planned to inter them along with his cat's in his father's Kopuatama Cemetery plot.

Manning could not even find a photo of Jim to perch atop the silver-handled casket he picked out for him.

The hundreds who turned out for Sunday morning service observed a requiem mass for Jim at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart parish, which had taken pity on him after it learnt of his unnoticed death.

Father James Lyons, noting similar cases in recent years of elderly men dying unnoticed in Wellington, sermonised on the peculiarity of modern loneliness.

"Whenever something like this happens there is an outcry: 'we don't know each other these days, we keep to ourselves...' " "The privacy we place around ourselves - we don't want to be disturbed, we don't want to be known - it will happen again, and that's the shame of it."

Jim's was a quiet presence over a pint at the Wellington Workingmen's Club's Friday night mixers.

He had joined in February 1989 and was still a member when it folded about a decade ago.

Four club old-timers were among a handful of mourners on Sunday.

Rita wore a silk scarf in marigold in Jim's memory, because "when he was young he had ginger hair".

Jim didn't speak much without being prompted but he told Jeanette he had no one in his life, she said.

"He was very, very accepting of it. I think thats why he came into the club, because we were the only people he kept in contact with," she said.

"In all the years he lived up there I don't think he had anyone over his flat."

Rita said she crossed paths with Jim often over the years, they swapped small talk about shares - although she was unsure of what kinds of investments he made.

He bought his sports coat, dress-shirt and trouser ensemble from the Salvation Army, but Rita felt "he was not a pauper."

Jim's daily routine, said Rita, was to buy groceries every morning at the supermarket near his Thorndon home, then after tea stroll down Lambton Quay to the city library, where he stayed reading until closing time.

"I have no idea what he did all day in between."

If he regretted his lonely existence he never showed it, Rita said: "To be a postmaster you have to have presence. He had a face that was very pleasant."

Jim told people he had terminal prostate cancer and Jeanette wondered if she might have seen him in his final weeks, near the Railway Station.

"He was crossing the road, I said to my husband, I said, 'there's poor old Jim'. He wasn't looking very well."

Manning felt Jim should not be perceived as a wretched figure.

"Some people are very, very private and that's what this man was and hence he's died the way he has. It may be sad to some people but, in fact, it's how he wanted to live life."