If you had £2.3m to leave the world, how would you want it to be spent?
Well, we're not saying that a beautiful display of flowers is necessarily the best possible way, but we could think of a lot worse. So a moment of respect for banker Keith Owen, who on discovering that he was terminally ill, left the English seaside town that he loved £2.3m to plant "a million bulbs"
Reverend Handel Bennett, who is now chairman of the "Keith Owen Fund", said: “The first time I met him was when he asked for us to visit him to discuss his will.
“He told us he was ill and had some money he wanted to leave us.
“I thought it would be in the range of a few hundred thousand, so when he told us it was more than a million we were very shocked. He was a very kind man.
“He loved Sidmouth so much he wanted to leave enough money to ensure it could be preserved.”
Obviously bankers' wages have been the source of much controversy over recent years, and there may be some who feel aggrieved that Mr Owen had 2.3m to give away in the first place. But its hard to argue with the basic nobility of the gesture: if your time has come to leave the world, why not leave a few more flowers peeking their bright petals at the sun when you've gone?
