FROM AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1930, Page 23

FROM AMERICA

HANDYMAN BARONET

ESTATELESS TITLE

As a tourist cabin passenger, with a suitcase as his only luggage, the ''Handyman Baronet, Sir John Fagge, recently arrived at Liverpool on the Cunard liner Lancastria.

Sir John succeeded to tli|C title on tho recent death of his brother, and the hows of his inheritance was conveyed to him whilst at work in tho small town of Pepporell, Massachusetts. A short, quiet, unassuming man of 61, with iron-grey hair and mouataehe, he wore a light-coloured cap and a black overcoat over a lumberman's jacket. "I had not seen my brother for 20 years,' 1 he said. "I am going first to Dover, where he lived, and there will consult my lawyers as ■to my inheritance. As far as I know, there is no real estate to pass with the title, but I understand a grant comes with it. "1 have some means, and I shall certainly stay in England for a while, but I like America, and if conditions here are not what I prefer I may return. Before I sailed I took preliminary steps to secure American naturalisation."

" Sir John Fagge proposes to pay early visits to Sturry, in Kent, the'old 'family seat, and Westbere, where his .grandfather, the Rev. Frederick Fagge, used to preach. Since leaving England in ISS7, at the age of 19, and going originally to Florida, Sir John has been, among other things, newsboy, shoelace factory mechanic, landscape gardener, railway clerk, and groom in Boston. " Since settling in Peppereil,' ' he said, "I have spent my time doing all kinds of jobs, but my hobby was- and is, landscape, gardening." WHAT HE MISSES. j When tlie.new1 baronet arrived• later at Dover, he told a Press representative after having' a look round, that he missed the pep in Peppereil. "I don't know that I shall stay in England," he saia.- "Things over here seem a little tame after "Peppereil." ; It is 20 years since he was in' Dover, where he.Jived as a boy. He went from Dover to America in 1887." He stayed in the hotel in Dover at which he used to visit with his father as a boy. When Sir John was asked what the baronetcy carried with it, his eyes twinkled as he replied, "Oh, it might bo enough to buy a cigar with." It is understood-that .tho baronetcy carries with it only a very modest income. "It will probably bo some little time before my brother's , affairs arc cleared up, and I' can decide what I am going to do," he added. "Tho idea of living in England does not altogether appeal to me. Apart from being rather tame, after life in America, it seems a bit hard to make acquaintances here. Then all tins- fuss about, my arrival is rather disturbing.'' It makes mo feel quite anxious. But it is very nice to soc tlio English countryside again. It all looks so fresh and green."