THE HANDYMAN BARONET

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1930, Page 9

THE HANDYMAN BARONET

QUICKLY TIRED OF LEISURE. an ENEMY OF FORMALITY. Sir John Fagge, the former handyman of Pepperell, Mass., at present a baronet in Dover, wants a job. Sir John arrived in England in midMarch, when he came to assume the title-he inherited from his elder brother, John Charles, who died in January, says the New York Times. Sir John’s life has not been too exciting during those ten weeks. He got no money with the title, and he is becoming a little bored with his role of leisured country oentleman who has to live in a board-ing-house. In faet, he would like a job in’London or any city in the. United States except Pepperell. Sir John doesn’t know yet whether he is going back to the United States soon, although he is sure he will return eventually. “But not to Pepperell,” he says, “tor it’s very different now, you know. . I used to work there. Now it. would bo different, because my position Jias changed. In other words, I won’t work in Pepperell.” The publicity on his acquiring his title had its " usual results, hundreds of letters from unknown correspondents. “Most of them are from old maids,” explained the sixty-year-old baronet, “who say all they want is sympathy and understanding and love. Some of them tell me they have a litt.e property —to go with. my title, you know. But I don’t pay- any attention to them. I can t be too careful.

Sir John took pains to deny, rumours that ho was. to be married again. "Anyway, if I do, it won’t be a Pepperell o-iri,’’ he said, “but right now I have too much ou my mind to think about it at all.” The baronet explained that he does not like formality, and he has consistently refused all suggestions by hie New Ens-’and friends that he buy dinner and evening clothes. Pointing to his navy blue business suit, his light bine shirt, and his stiff collar, he declared that one would never recognise him as the same man who four months ago plied the trades of nuu-eryinan, eaipen ter, auctioneer, and house-paperer in blue denims andcanvas shoes, and who didn’t own a white collar., “But thia is as far as I’m going,” he said, flicking a bit of dust from his suit with a gray suede glove. Sir John spends most of his time walking about Kent or up and down the beach promenade of Dover. Twice daily he goes to his local room to collect mail and have a game of billiards in the back room. The difficulties of his inheritance, Sir John said, were due to the faet that his brother left his entire fortune to two old servants and none to his younger brother, who left home when he was 17. The problem of an heir doesn’t worry Sir John at all. He said he had a eeven-teen-year-old daughter living ''-somewhere near Boston.” His wife died thirteen years ago. • -•• 1 '