GOOD DONE SECRETLY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 79, 15 January 1936, Page 8

GOOD DONE SECRETLY.

MAN THOUGHT TO BE A MISER. Everybody in the village of Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, thought 75-year-old Harry Grimley was a miser. And there were seeming grounds for that belief. For 40 years the window blinds of his towering old residence in the main street had been kept drawn. He wore old clothes, and did not mix with the villagers. Now the blinds have been raised. The strange old bachelor has been revealed in his true colours. He was a philanthropist—a man who did good by stealth, who, though well-to-do, secretly deprived himself in order to help others. In the room where he used to work all through the night a "Sunday Graphic" reporter was told the amazing life story of this mystery man by Miss Taylor 3 who had been his housekeeper for 34 years, and is the sole beneficiary under his will. "He came from a wealthy family," said Miss Taylor, "and his father first put him into a bank. Then he started collecting tithes and doing house agency and insurance work, and he had interests in a granite firm. My salary has been £2O a year, and he has allowed me £4 a month to buy food for us both. He was most fastidious about his diet, which, he based on the Old Testament. He regularly read the Scriptures, and said food that was not good for Moses was not good for us. He would not eat fish without scales, and refused anything from pigs, hares or rabbits. I was not allowed to cook with lard, and the only liquid he ever drank was warm water.

"No medicine was allowed in the house, and he never smoked. At night he would sit in this room studying anything from Greek to astrology and phrenology. At two and three in the morning he would pace the garden and study the stars. All the years I have known him he never went to bed at night. "From his old diaries and stacks of correspondence I find that for years he has been secretly befriending people in need. I know that when clients had no money he often paid their debts himself. I have only just found out that he owns property and land in surrounding villages. I. never heard him talk of any love affair. As a young man he was strikingly handsome. "He adored children and was most devoted to animals. Even to the last he was thinking of others. In his will he left me everything and appointed me executrix ' To give to those who I considered to be in most need.' I know that many people imposed on his generosity, but when I tried to tell him, he only laughed and mumbled, ' never mind.' " And as the old church clock chimed the faithful housekeeper looked out of the big, iron-barred window to the churchyard where her master was buried. Her tears ended the life history- of Harry Grim ley.