£5OO FOR BARBER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1940, Page 8

£5OO FOR BARBER

ENGLISH COLONEL'S WILL. A Southampton barber's assistant, Richard Silk, used to visit Colonel Walter Henry Rotherham, of Cedar Lodge, Southampton, to cut his hair and trim his moustache. Now Silk has learned that of the colonel's £64,000 estate he has been left £5OO for his •‘ready and willing help on every occasion.” With the same words, Colonel Rotherham also left £5OO each to his win-, dow cleaner, Frederick E. Vincent, his electrician, Ernest Miselbrook, and his builder, Herbert D. Mead. Colonel Rotherham, a childless widower, was 73 years old when he died. His other bequests included £3OO each to Mrs May Josephine Bramble, his housekeeper, and to her husband, his gardener, and £lOOO to his chauffeur for his "invaluable help and friendship.”

"The colonel was a wonderfully generous man, kindness itself to everyone who knew him." Mrs Bramble said. "When my husband and 1 came lo Cedar Lodge he offered to build us a special cottage in the grounds so that we could have our own home. We preferred to stay in the house. “Ar all times he treated us as friends rather than as servants, and never addressed a cross word to us. My husband and I have lost a very dear friend."