STOLEN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 8, 9 July 1931, Page 23

STOLEN

STRAD VIOLIN

The disappearance of what is reputed to be a genuine Stradivarius violin is engaging the attention of the Cheshire police at Oakmere. The violin was the property of Mr. Thomas Done, a septuagenarian farmer, Of Golf Links Earm, Delamare, and was stolen from the farm during the early hours. The robbery was accompanied by an outbreak of lire aiid a series of loud explosions. The noise of the- explosions awakened Mr. and Mrs. Done, and on going to the bedroom door to investigate they were met by dense clouds of snioke coming from a room downstairs. Bushing downstairs, they found that a cuboard Was on fire, but with the aid of buckets of water they managed to extinguish the outbreak. It was then that Mrs. Done noticed that the Strad was missing. Mr. Done, who has had the violin for about forty years, said they were awakened about 3 o'clock in the morning. "My wife thought somebody was knocking at the door, and got up to see Who it was. At tho bedroom door, however, sho was met by clouds of smoke pouring up the staircase, and shouted, 'The houso is on lire.' "AYe hurried downstairs together and found the cupboard in which my violjn was kept in flames. After we had put tho fire out my wife opened the cupboard and exclaimed, 'Oh, Tom, it's gone.' I knew sho meant my violin." Mr. Done said he had bought tho violin from a Little Budworth man for a few pounds about forty years ago.'lt had been in his family for something, like fifty years, ho said. He got it from a relative who wa_ a butler to a rich man, In reply to a question as to the genuineness of tho violin, Mr. Done Said: "It had a Stradivarius label, and the date 1687, and, although I never had.it examined by experts, I was „!• ways assured that it was genuine. Its varnish was unlike any I have seen, and it had a wonderful tone." The explosions were caused by a packet Of shot cartridges in the cupboard ■catching r_re- and ft number of pots of home-made jam bui'sting with the heat.