posted 02-07-2004 03:31 PM         

LONDON (Reuters) - A British retiree did not notice his brother had been dead for 18 months despite sharing a mobile home with him.
When Herbert Silver, 72, finally called police and told them his brother George, 75, had died, they went to the bachelors' home expecting to find a body. Instead they found a skeleton, British newspapers reported Thursday.

"I admit that I didn't go into his room for a few hours, a few days...well quite a while actually," Herbert Silver told the Daily Telegraph.

Silver said he had thought it a "bit odd" when his brother failed to emerge from his bedroom in the tiny home they shared in Blissford, southern England, but told the Daily Mirror:

"George liked to keep himself to himself, and to be honest so do I." A postmortem indicated George Silver had been dead for up to 18 months.