STRANGE CHRISTMAS.
MAN WHO SAT IN A COFFIN. The strangest way of spending Christmas was that of Mr. Thomas Thompson, the 75-year-old north-west Durham hermit, who spent practically the whole time on December 25 sitting in his coffin, which he purchased 15 years ago, and reading a prayer book. The old man said that ho often slept in the coffin because of its warmth, " although," lie added, " there is not much room to turn in it." It was some 35 years ago that Mr. Thompson took up the life of a hermit duo to a family quarrel when ho was sexton at Stanhope Church. From that day he has not seen his wife or their three children, and his only friends now are the wild life of the lovely Derwent Valley, near Consett, where he lives in a corrugated iron hut.
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)
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141STRANGE CHRISTMAS. New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)
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