Its an old fashioned story.
Its title is something like "The churchwarden" or similar but I havent yet found a story by that name. I seem to recall its by one of the popular male writers of the early/mid 20th century but try as I might the name escapes me. I have even resorted to looking through lists of authors to no avail.
The theme is an old man who had been working in a church yard(possibly digging graves etc) and with hard work managed to work his way up to owning (a chain?) of shop/s. At the end of the story he was asked to read something(?) and he confessed that he couldnt read . Then he was asked what he could have made of himself if he had been able to read. The answer was that he would have remained a churchwarden(or whatever it was).
Does anyone know what Im talking about?